XII

THE BEGINNING OF THE MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

Harmony pages 12-14 and Mat 3:1-12 ; Mar 1:1-8 ; Luk 3:1-18 .

In a preceding chapter we have considered somewhat the biblical material for a life of John the Baptist, and certain questions touching his position in the kingdom of our Lord. The analysis of that material will constitute the outline of all our discussion of John. We now take up the beginnings of his ministry.

The time, in our era, was A.D. 29, since John had been preaching several months before he baptized Jesus, and Luke tells us that “Jesus himself, when he began to teach, was about thirty years of age” (Luk 3:23 ).

The true time would be four years earlier, A.D. 25, if we are correct in our revision of the Abbott Dyonisius Exiguus. It is characteristic of Luke to collate his date with the world movements. It was the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar who, as adopted son, succeeded Augustus, somewhat after the time that Jesus, twelve years old, became conscious of his messiahship. Since the deposition of Archelaus, Judea, ldumea, and Samaria had become an imperial province, ruled by procurators appointed by Caesar, and subordinated to Syria ruled by proconsul. About a year before Christ was baptized Tiberius had appointed Pontius Pilate the sixth procurator, and he remained in office until after Christ’s death. Pontius Pilate obtained this office because he had married the vicious granddaughter of Augustus; her profligate mother, daughter of Augustus, was one of the most infamous profligates of a profligate age. Strange it is that the New Testament is the only history that speaks a good word of either Pilate or his wife. In its fidelity as history, it neither omits the blemishes of its saints, nor withholds, when due, praise to the most wicked.

The military headquarters of the procurator was Caesarea, built by Herod the Great. But the turbulence of Jerusalem often required his presence in that city, particularly at the three great feasts. Pilate had already steeped Jerusalem in blood and had been forced by pressure of the Jews to withdraw the idolatrous Roman eagles from the holy city. (See Josephus, Antiquities, Book XVIII, Chapter 5, Section 1.) It was probably on this occasion that Pilate “mingled the blood of Galilean Jews with their sacrifices” in the Temple, to which our Lord later referred, at Luk 13:1-2 . This Pilate, already at bitter feud with the Jews, was Roman ruler of Judea, Samaria, and ldumea, when John commenced his ministry.

At the same time Herod Antipas, who later beheaded John, and mocked our Lord at his trial, was tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. At the same time Herod Philip II was tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitus, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene. At Jerusalem the infamous Annas, and his son-in-law Joseph Caiaphas, were both high priests, contrary to Jewish law, but by Roman appointment. We shall see our Lord, some three and a half years later, brought before them both. These references of Luke enable us to understand the world political and ecclesiastic conditions under which the ministries of John and our Lord commenced.

The place is at the fords of the Jordan near Jericho. Later we see John at other places, higher up the Jordan, but never in the cities always in the desert places. This fact alone demonstrates that John is not officiating as a priest of the Old Testament in either synagogue or temple, but as a reformer prophet of the new dispensation.

John’s dress, diet, and habits. “Now John himself had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his food was locusts and wild honey.” The angel who announced his coming declared, “He shall drink no wine nor strong drink” (Luk 1:15 ). He fasted often, and taught his disciples to fast (Mat 9:14 ; Mar 2:18 ; Luk 5:35 ). Our Lord himself said of him, “He came neither eating nor drinking,” and adds, “but what went ye out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they who are gorgeously appareled and live delicately are in kings’ courts (Luk 7:25 ).

You must understand that “the locusts” eaten by John were not fruits of the tree, “honey-locust,” but migrating grasshoppers, a common enough food with many eastern people, and permitted as food by Jewish law (Lev 11:21-22 ).

His enduement for service. “He was full of the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb” (Luk 1:15 ), and like Jeremiah (Jer 1:5 ) and Paul (Gal 1:15 ) and his Lord (Isa 49:5 ), he was “set apart” to his office from his mother’s womb. Indeed, he was the only child known to historic records who, before he was born, “leaped with joy” spiritual (Luk 1:44 ).

His preparation. Our only record is: “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the desert until the day of his showing unto Israel.”

He was no product of the schools, either secular or rabbinical. He derived his knowledge from neither synagogue nor Temple, but was wholly taught by God. We have no information of the character of his necessarily profound meditations in his thirty years of desert life. The preparation was long, silent, and solitary. But he shook the world in his few months of public ministry.

After what order was he a prophet? The record is clear. The order was as unique as the order of his Lord’s priesthood. Malachi says, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Jehovah come.” This prophecy made a profound impression on the Jewish mind, as is evident from several New Testament incidents. It was a Jewish custom to place a chair for Elijah at the family feast following the circumcision of a child. If the chair was so placed when John was circumcised, they ought to have placed the baby in it, for behold, Elijah had come. Our Lord says expressly that John was the promised Elijah (Mat 17:10-13 ; Mar 9:11-13 ). John himself disclaims being Elijah, that is, in a literal sense (Joh 1:21 ), but the announcing angel explains “He shall go before his face, in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luk 1:17 ). Indeed, Elijah himself appears on the scene at the transfiguration of our Lord (Mat 17:3 ). Elijah was by far the most dramatic of the Old Testament prophets, in his garb, in his desert life, in the abrupt entrances on the stage of life and sudden exits, in the long silences, in the great issues of reformation suddenly thrust for instant decision on the king and people. The resemblance between Elijah and John is every way striking. If Elijah had his weak Ahab and relentless Jezebel, John had his weak Herod Antipas and vindicative Herodias. If, through terror of Jezebel, Elijah flees and despairs, so John, in a dungeon, apprehensive of the “convenient day” of Herodias, falls into doubt.

THE COMMISSIONS OF JOHN THE BAPTIST His commission as Elijah. Malachi says, “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Mal 4:6 ). To this the announcing angel refers, at Luk 1:17 . The question arises, what is the exact meaning of the passage? Does it imply an alienation between parents and children, which John’s mission is to remove by restoring proper parental love and care toward their children and proper filial regard and reverence for parents, according to the reciprocal obligations of the Fifth Commandment, and on the line of Paul’s precepts “fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” and “children, obey your parents in the Lord”? If so, it was a mighty mission, for the earth is already cursed when these reciprocal obligations are disregarded, to the moral destruction of the family. If so, the passage becomes a golden text in all Sunday school movements. In my early ministry I so used it as a text before the Sunday School Convention of Texas assembled at old Independence. In my sermon I stressed the growing evil of race suicide, the fashionable mothers depriving their children of maternal love and care in order to attend the calls of a worldly, frivolous society, and the modern absorption of fathers in business which led them to disregard the spiritual welfare of their children.

But if this be the meaning, we fail to find this important matter the theme of special discussion either by Elijah or John. But, perhaps, the marginal reading of the revision conveys the true idea, “Turning the hearts of the fathers, with the hearts of the children” toward God, and not toward each other, and “turning the disobedient to the wisdom of the just.” This last accords with the preaching of both Elijah and John, and lifts their commission from the fifth to the first commandment.

His commission as the messenger of the Temple visitor: “Behold) I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire, behold, he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts. But who can abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like the refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap; and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer unto Jehovah offerings in righteousness.” When men who remembered the glory of Solomon’s Temple lamented the comparative insignificance of Zerrubbabel’s Temple, the prophet Haggai assured them that the glory of the latter house should exceed the glory of the former house, because to it “The Desire of all nations should come.” Now, John is the messenger who prepares the way for the Messiah to come suddenly to his Temple. That John did prepare the way for the Messiah’s searching and purifying visit to his Temple is evident from Joh 2:13-17 .

His commission as the voice and the grader of the highway to God, Isa 40:1-11 . This passage of Isaiah is the most important of the Old Testament forecasts of John, and perhaps it is the least understood in its richness. On it observe:

(1) It is the beginning of the Old Testament Book of Comfort. Commencing with the fortieth chapter, the last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah, treating of the Messiah’s advent and mission constitute the Old Testament Book of Comfort, as John 14-17, treating of the Holy Spirit’s advent and mission, constitute the New Testament Book of Comfort.

Isaiah’s paragraph commences: “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.” The voice of John the Baptist is the response to this command to comfort.

(2) Therefore he is a preacher of the gospel, which means “good tidings” “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up on a high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold, your God!” (Isa 40:9 ). Hence, as soon as John’s voice broke the prophetic silence of 400 years, Mark, in his first sentence drives down the corner post that establishes the starting point of the New Dispensation: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” And when our Lord comes up to Mark’s corner post, he puts up this discriminating signboard: “The law and the prophets were until John, and since that time the kingdom of heaven is preached and all men press into it.”

What a pity that our pedobaptist brethren cannot lay aside their Old Testament colored glasses, and our Campbellite brethren lay aside their Pentecostal delusion concerning the kingdom, which mistakes the Spirit’s advent for the Messiah’s advent, and both of them with unveiled faces behold Mark’s corner post and our Lord’s signboard I

(3) Observe John’s grading of the King’s highway of Holiness (Isa 40:3-5 ). In this connection observe also the relevance of the Septuagint rendering of Isa 35:1 , “The waste places of the Jordan shall be glad,” or as a great scholar puts it: “The banks of the Jordan shall rejoice because of them,” i.e., because of John and Jesus.

The same great chapter of Isaiah also says of John’s highway: “And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; and the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for the redeemed; the wayfaring men, yea fools shall not err therein. No lion shall be there nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon; they shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of Jehovah shall return and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

His commission as friend of the bridegroom. “He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom that standeth and heareth him rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is made full.” The New Testament represents our Lord as the bridegroom of the church in the divine purpose (Eph 5:25-26 ) and at his first advent (Mat 9:15 ; Joh 3:29 ) and at his final advent (Mat 25:1-13 ; Eph 5:27 ; Rev 19:6-9 ).

In our context, “the friend of the bridegroom” is not what we call the “best man,” or first male attendant, who attends to the business matters and arranges the details of a marriage. It has a much higher meaning, to wit: the evangelist who, through his preaching, espouses the lost sinner to his Saviour. As Paul expresses it: ‘For I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2Co 11:2 ).

“The friend of the bridegroom” is even more than the officiating clergyman, who merely performs a marriage rite, without having had anything to do with bringing the groom and bride into loving relations. His business is to “make ready the people prepared for the Lord.” Through his preaching the sinner is convicted of sin, and then through contrition led to repentance, and then through faith, is mystically united to Christ.

The idea is somewhat presented in the mission of Abraham’s servant (Gen 24 ), who went to Haran to seek a wife for Isaac. He faithfully negotiated the business of his mission, and brought Rebekah to Isaac.

In this touching story, in which the old servant set forth in a matchless plea the worthiness of his master, Abraham, and the desirableness of his son, Isaac, so winning Rebekah to leave her father’s house and to accept Isaac as a husband, Edward Eggleston, in the Circuit Rider, makes his preacher take a theme: “I have come to seek a bride for my Lord,” and so happily expounds it that a brilliant but worldly young lady arose at once, laid aside all her jewels, and openly professed faith in the glorious Saviour so faithfully presented by the preacher. What, then, every evangelist does in individual cases, John the Baptist did on a large scale, introducing and uniting a lost world to a gracious Saviour. To the sinner he said, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!” How gloriously he presented the excellencies of the Saviour appears from the record, and suggests to every preacher a great lesson on how to present acceptably and savingly the Saviour to the sinner. We must not, therefore, understand John’s mission as stern and sad, but full of joy.

His commission to give the knowledge of salvation in the remission of sins (Luk 1:77 ). On many accounts we should stress this point, because a modern denomination insists that God’s “law of pardon” was not announced until the first Pentecost after Christ’s resurrection.

It was not Peter, in Act 2:38 , who first promulgated this law of pardon. The honor belongs to John the Baptist. In my early ministry I held a debate with a preacher who affirmed that the kingdom of heaven was not set up until this day of Pentecost, and then in Act 2:38 was the law of pardon first promulgated. I asked him these questions:

(1) What did Christ give to Peter? He said, “The keys of the kingdom.”

(2) Did Peter have those keys on that Pentecost? He answered, “Yes.”

(3) Did God then and there build a kingdom to fit the keys, or were the keys made to fit the kingdom?

(4) Did Peter, using the keys, open the door of the kingdom that day? He said, “Yes.”

(5) Did he open it from the inside or from the outside? If from the inside, was not Peter in it? If from the outside, when and how did Peter himself get in?

(6) And if from the outside, when the 3,000 were added to them, did that leave them on the outside?

(7) Did Peter open the Jew door that day, and what door did he open in Acts to Act 10:43 ? And if Act 10:43 was the Gentile door, why did he [that preacher] not look there for the law of pardon to Gentiles, and why did he, a Gentile, deify the Jew door, Act 2:38 ?

(8) And what about the door that John the Baptist opened in Luk 1:77 ?

His commission to announce the antecedent withering work of the Spirit. “The voice of one saying, Cry, And one said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof is the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath of Jehovah bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of God shall stand forever.”

On this text Spurgeon preached a great sermon. He said, “The command to John was to speak comfortably to Jerusalem” (Isa 40:1-2 ). And John asked, in order to speak comfortably, “What shall I cry?” And the strange answer comes: “Cry that all flesh is grass, and the grass withereth and the flower fadeth.” That is, before you get to the comfort, the carnal nature must wither, then comes the spiritual nature, which abideth forever.

Therefore John said to fleshly Israel: “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said unto them, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore) fruit worthy of repentance and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And even now the ax lieth at the root of the trees: every tree, therefore, that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Mat 3:7-10 ). This is John’s sermon on the necessity of regeneration.

This last commission of John leads up to a thorough discussion of the great staple of his preaching, “Repentance toward God on account of sin.”

QUESTIONS

1. What is the time ill our era when John commenced preaching?

2. Show how Luke, in a characteristic way, collates this date with the political and ecclesiastical conditions of the world.

3. What was the place of John’s first preaching?

4. Describe his dress, diet and habits.

5. What of his enduement for service?

6. What of his preparation for service? Answer negatively and positively.

7. After what order was he a prophet, and what is the parallel between John and Elijah?

8. What was John’s commission as Elijah?

9. Which of the two meanings of this commission seems best to fit the work of John and Elijah?

10. What of his commission aa the messenger of the great Temple visitor? II. What was his commission as the voice and grader of the highway of God?

12. What the Old Testament book of comfort, and the New Testament book of comfort?

13. Describe how Mark and our Lord marked the beginning of the new dispensation.

14. What of the Septuagint rendering of Isa 35:1 , and its application to John’s ministry?

15. What of the description of the highway in that chapter, graded by John?

16. In his commission as “friend of the bridegroom,” does it mean that he was only what we call “the best man,” or does it mean the same as the officiating preacher, or does it mean something higher than both? If so, what, and explain.

17. Illustrate by the remarkable history in Gen 24 .

18. Describe the Methodist preacher’s sermon on that chapter.

19. What of John’s commission with reference to remission of sins, and why should we stress this point?

20. Give the several questions propounded in a debate, where the affirmation was made that the kingdom of heaven was set up on the day of Pentecost, and the law of pardon then and there promulgated.

21. What of his commission to announce the antecedent withering work of the Holy Spirit?

22. Describe Spurgeon’s sermon on this text.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,

Ver. 1. Pontius Pilate being governor ] Tacitus calleth him procurator only of Judea. But St Luke here makes little difference between his office and the imperial honour of his master Tiberius; for he useth the same word to express both, . The Earl of Flanders counts it a great prerogative, that he writes himself Comes Dei gratia. Others only Dei clementia. The Duke of Milan, that he is the prime duke of Europe. The deputy of Ireland, that there cometh no vicegerent in Europe more near the majesty and prerogative of a king than he, &c.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

1 22. ] PREACHING AND BAPTISM OF JOHN. DIVINE TESTIMONY TO JESUS AT HIS BAPTISM. Mat 3:1-17 . Mar 1:4-11 .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

1. ] These dates are consistent with the which Luke predicates of himself, ch. Luk 1:3 . In Mat 3:1 we have the same events indicated as to time by only . .

The fifteenth year of the sole principate of Tiberius began Aug. 19, U.C. 781, and reckoning backwards thirty years from that time (see Luk 3:23 ), we should have the birth of our Lord in U.C. 751 or about then; for . will admit of some latitude. But Herod the Great died in the beginning of the year 750, and our Lord’s birth must be fixed some months at least before the death of Herod. If then it be placed in 749, He would have been at least thirty-two at the time of His baptism, seeing that it took place some time after the beginning of John’s ministry. This difficulty has led to the supposition that this fifteenth year is not to be dated from the sole but from the associated principate of Tiberius, which commenced most probably at the end of U.C. 764. According to this, the fifteenth of Tiberius will begin at the end of U.C. 779 and our Lord’s birth would be U.C. 749 or 50: which will agree with the death of Herod. This latter explanation has usually been adopted. Our present ra was fixed by Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century, and places the birth of our Lord in 754 U.C. It may be doubted, however, whether in all these reckonings more accuracy has not been sought than the Gospel narrative warrants any expectation of our finding. The . is a wide expression, and might cover any age from thirty (see note on Luk 3:23 ) to thirty-two or thirty-three.

See on Mat 2:2 , where it appears probable from astronomical considerations, that our Lord was born as early as U.C. 747. Mr. Greswell has devoted several Dissertations to this enquiry: see his vol. i. p. 189 ff.

. . . ] Pilate was only Procurator of Juda: the words cognate to being used promiscuously of the leading officers of the Roman government. PONTIUS PILATE was the sixth procurator from the deposition of Archelaus, and came to Juda about U.C. 779. He held the province ten years, and was sent to Rome to answer for his conduct by Vitellius, prefect of Syria, U.C. 789, the year of the death of Tiberius. See chronological table in Prolegg. Vol. II.

] See note on Mat 14:1 . HEROD ANTIPAS became tetrarch of Galilee after the death of his father Herod, U.C. 750, and continued till he was deposed in 792.

] Son of Herod the Great by Cleopatra, a woman of Jerusalem, Jos. Antt. xvii. 1. 3. He was brought up at Rome, and after his father’s death in U.C. 750 was made tetrarch of Batana, Gaulonitis, Trachonitis, Panias, Auranitis (Batana + Auranitis = Itura), and continued till his death in U.C. 786 or 787. He built Csarea Philippi. He was by far the best of Herod’s sons, and ruled his portion mildly and well. He must not be confounded with his half-brother Philip , whose wife Herodias Herod Antipas seduced. This latter was disinherited by his father, and lived in privacy. See note on Mat 14:1 .

. . . . ] ABILENE, the district round Abila, a town eighteen miles north of Damascus, now, according to Pococke, Nebi Abel. It must not be confounded with Abila in Decapolis, Josephus, Antt. xix. 5. 1, mentions it as among the districts which Claudius gave to king Agrippa I. under the name of , and in B. J. ii. 11. 5, as .

In Antt. xx. 7. 1, he has . : cf. also Ptolem. Luk 3:15 , (making it, however, one of the cities of Decapolis). This Lysanias however was son of Ptolemy, the son of Minnus (B. J. i. 13. 1), and was killed by Antony, at Cleopatra’s instigation (B.C. 34). The Lysanias here mentioned may be some descendant of the other, since we find him here only ruling Abilene , whereas the other is called by Dio (xlix. 32), king of Itura. Now at his death we learn that the . was farmed by one Zenodorus (Antt. xv. 10. 1), whom (ib. 3) Augustus deprived of his , and at his death, which immediately followed, gave the principal of his districts, Trachonitis, Auranitis (Antt. xvii. 11. 4), &c., to Herod, B.C. 23. Among these Abilene is not named , and it therefore is possible that it may have been granted to a descendant of the former possessor . The silence of Josephus is no reason against this supposition, as he does not minutely relate the fortunes of districts which do not lie in the path of his history. The appellation of again in the time of Claudius, after this appellation has disappeared so long, looks as if there had been another between. See Wieseler, i. 175 ff. Meyer, Comm. in loc. Bleek, Synoptische Erkl. in loc.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Luk 3:1-2 . General historic setting of the beginnings . For Mt.’s vague “in those days” (Luk 3:1 ), which leaves us entirely in the dark at what date and age Jesus entered on His prophetic career, Lk. gives a group of dates connecting his theme with the general history of the world and of Palestine; the universalistic spirit here, as in Luk 2:1-2 , apparent. This spirit constitutes the permanent ethical interest of what may seem otherwise dry details: for ordinary readers of the Gospel little more than a collection of names, personal and geographical. Worthy of note also, as against those who think Lk. was to a large extent a free inventor , is the indication here given of the historical spirit, the desire to know the real facts (Luk 1:3 ). The historic data, six in all, define the date of John’s ministry with reference to the reigning Roman emperor, and the civil and ecclesiastical rulers of Palestine.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Luk 3:1 . , etc., in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius as Caesar. This seems a very definite date, rendering all the other particulars, so far as fixing time is concerned, comparatively superfluous. But uncertainty comes in in connection with the question: is the fifteenth year to be reckoned from the death of Augustus (19 Aug., 767 A.U.C.), when Tiberius became sole emperor, or from the beginning of the regency of Tiberius, two years earlier? The former mode of calculation would give us 28 or 29 A.D. as the date of John’s ministry and Christ’s baptism, making Jesus then thirty-two years old; the latter, 26 A.D., making Jesus then thirty years old, agreeing with Luk 3:23 . The former mode of dating would be more in accordance with the practice of Roman historians and Josephus; the latter lends itself to apologetic and harmonistic interests, and therefore is preferred by many ( e.g. , Farrar and Hahn). . Pilate was governor of the Roman province of Judaea from 26 A.D. to 36 A.D., the fifth in the series of governors. His proper title was (hence the reading of [38] : . .); usually in Gospels. He owes his place here in the historic framework to the part he played in the last scenes of our Lord’s life. Along with him are named next two joint rulers of other parts of Palestine, belonging to the Herod family; brought in, though of no great importance for dating purposes, because they, too, figure occasionally in the Gospel story. , acting as tetrarch. The verb means primarily: ruling over a fourth part, then by an easy transition acting as a tributary prince. : about twenty-five miles long and broad, divided into lower (southern) Galilee and upper (northern). With Galilee was joined for purposes of government Peraea. , Herod Antipas, murderer of the Baptist, and having secular authority over Jesus as his subject. , Herod Philip, brother of Antipas, whose name reappears in the new name of Paneas, rebuilt or adorned by him, Caesarea Philippi. : so Lk. designates the territory ruled over by Philip. The words might be rendered: the Ituraean and Trachonitic territory, implying the identity of Ituraea and Trachonitis (as in Eusebius. For a defence of this view, vide article by Professor Ramsay in Expositor , February, 1894); or, as in A. V [39] , of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis. The former was a mountainous region to the south of Mount Hermon, inhabited by a hardy race, skilled in the use of the bow; the latter (the rough country) = the modern El-Lejah, the kingdom of Og in ancient times, was a basaltic region south of Damascus, and east of Golan. It is probable that only a fragment of Ituraea belonged to Philip, the region around Paneas. On the other hand, according to Josephus, his territories embraced more than the regions named by Lk.: Batanaea, Auranitis, Gaulonitis, and some parts about Jamnia (various places in Ant. and B. J.). , etc. This last item in Lk.’s dating apparatus is the most perplexing, whether regard be had to relevancy or to accuracy. To what end this reference to a non-Jewish prince, and this outlying territory between the Lebanon ranges? What concern has it with the evangelic history, or of what use is it for indicating the place of the latter in the world’s history? By way of answer to this question, Farrar (C. G. T.) suggests that the district of Abilene (Abila the capital) is probably mentioned here “because it subsequently formed part of the Jewish territory, having been assigned by Caligula to his favourite, Herod Agrippa I., in A.D. 36”. As to the accuracy: it so happens that there was a Lysanias, who ruled over Chalchis and Abilene sixty years before the time of which Lk. writes, who probably bore the title tetrarch. Does Lk., misled by the title, think of that Lysanias as a contemporary of Herod Antipas and Herod Philip, or was there another of the name really their contemporary, whom the evangelist has in his view? Certain inscriptions cited by historical experts make the latter hypothesis probable. Schrer ( The Jewish People , Div. I., vol. ii., appendix 1, on the History of Chalchis, Ituraea, and Abilene , p. 338) has no doubt on the point, and says: “the evangelist, Lk., is thoroughly correct when he assumes that in the fifteenth year of Tiberias there was a Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene”.

[38] Codex Bezae

[39] Authorised Version.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Luke Chapter 3

Luk 3:1-14 .

Mat 3:1-12 ; Mar 1:1-8 .

The dates are given in Luke reckoning from the years of the Roman empire. Judea is but a province of it, the Herods are in power. All this was a very humiliating and significant circumstance for Israel – impossible if the people had been faithful to God. But God does not hide the shame of His people; on the contrary He makes it manifest by this very fact – He gives it a record in His own eternal Word, the Word that liveth and abideth for ever.

“Now, in the fifteenth year of the government of Tiberius Caesar,tid=48#bkm68- Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod Tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip Tetrarch of Ituraea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias Tetrarch of Abilene,tid=48#bkm69- in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.”* We see from this that, although the high priests were there, yet even this holy office was affected strangely by the new circumstances of Israel. There was not one high priest but two;tid=48#bkm70- there was disorder that not only dislocated the people politically, but tainted their religious relations. However, God was faithful and His word “came upon tid=48#bkm71- John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness” – even in spite of these circumstances, but in the wilderness. It is no question of the city of the great King now, but of the wilderness; and John the Baptist’s dwelling in the wilderness, and the Word of God coming upon him there, speak volumes as to the real state of the holy city. It was not to Zion that the Word of God came.

*”In the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas”: so Edd. after ABCDEGHKL, etc., and most cursives. The plural “A. and C. being high priests” is confined to minuscules.

Accordingly, John “came into all the district round the Jordan,tid=48#bkm72- preaching [the] baptism of repentance for [the] remission of sins.” Repentance was what characterised John’s preaching; not but that repentance was and abides always a truth obligatory upon every sinful soul that comes to the knowledge of God. Under Christianity repentance, so far from being lessened in its character, is deepened: yet you could not say that it is characteristic of Christianity – faith is much more so. Hence in Galatians the apostle speaks of “when faith was come.” (Gal 3:23-25 ). “When repentance was come” would be no description of the new thing, whereas in John the Baptist’s preaching it was the emphatic word that described the character of his message. John came therefore “preaching [the] baptism of repentance for [the] remission of sins.” He had indeed a peculiar position. It was not law simply nor even prophets, though in truth he was the greatest of prophets; none had arisen greater than John the Baptist. But it was one who was the herald of the Messiah, Whom he proclaimed to be just at the doors – yea, in their midst, as he says – and in view of His immediate coming he calls men to repentance. It was the confession of utter failure with respect to the law and despising of the prophets, but it was also to confess their sins in view of One just coming Who could and would forgive their sins. He preached therefore “[the] baptism of repentance for [the] remission of sins.” This was not arbitrary but of Divine authority. “He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.” He was really sent to baptize with water; but at the same time there was an intimation given to him that he should see the Spirit descending upon some special Individual – the Messiah; and that the Messiah should be a baptizer (not with water, but) with the Holy Ghost. This was his peculiar mission. Christ, and He alone, baptizes with the Holy Ghost, and this the Lord Jesus did when He went up to heaven. But John baptized upon earth with water. No doubt under Christianity baptism with water still continues and has a very important meaning, – I do not doubt a good deal deeper than John’s. It is not merely baptism unto repentance that “they should believe on him which should come after him.” But now baptism is founded on the faith of Him Who has already come and died; consequently, the great point of Christian baptism is burial (not into Christ’s life, of course, but) into His death. John could not say this; he saw a living Christ, though he spoke by the Holy Ghost of His being “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” (Joh 1:29 ). How far he entered into the meaning of what he said is another matter. We know for certain that when he was thrown into prison himself afterwards, he was somewhat offended or stumbled, and sent some of his disciples to ask, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” (Luk 7:19 ). It is clear therefore that he looked for a Christ in power to break the chains of the oppressed and to deliver the captives, as well as to preach the Gospel to the poor. But to see a Saviour despised and rejected more and more, and himself, His forerunner, languishing in a prison, these were altogether new and strange thoughts to John the Baptist. Nevertheless God had taken care that his lips should proclaim the mighty work of Christ in both its parts, as the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, and as the One Who baptizes with the Holy Ghost.

Now we have John the Baptist acting here according to Isaiah the prophet. “Voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Only the Spirit of God in Luke takes care to give it the utmost breadth. “Every gorge shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked [places] shall become straight [paths], and the rough places smooth ways. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”tid=48#bkm73- (Isa 40:3-5 ). We have not this elsewhere. In Matthew, Mark, and John the quotation stops short of this. But Luke, though he begins with the Jew, does not end with him; but very decidedly goes out to all the nations. Hence expressions that would add largeness and comprehensiveness are particularly added by the Spirit here.

But another peculiarity of Luke is exemplified here also. There is not only exceeding breadth given to the ways of God, but also the Word of God in its moral power is continually enforced. So when John the Baptist speaks to the multitudes that come to be baptized of him, he warns them, as the other Evangelists do also, to flee from the wrath to come, and not to presume upon their privileges of birth, saying, “We have Abraham for [our] fathertid=48#bkm74- ; for I say to you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” Moreover, already “the axe is applied to the root of the trees”; judgment was at the door; – “every tree therefore not producing good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire.” This process was what was now going on. So far we have what is common to Luke with Matthew. But we have afterwards what is peculiar. “And the crowds asked him, saying, What should we do then?” And then we have John the Baptist’s detailed exhortation to different classes of men. “He answering says* to them, He that has two coats let him give to him that has none; and he that has food let him do likewise.” Although John called to repentance, it is a poor and superficial sorrow for sins that simply owns the past and judges, however strongly, the evil that has hitherto broken out in our ways. John lays down suitable conduct for those who professed to repent. God was acting Himself for His own glory in the spirit of this same grace. Repentance prepares the way for grace; it is produced by grace, of course, but at, the same time it leads into a path of grace.

*”Says” is the reading of AD., etc., whilst BCpm LX, 1, 33, 69, have “said,” which Edd. (Revv.) adopt. Blass, however, retains .

So also when the tax-gatherers came to be baptized, instead of dismissing them contemptuously as a mere Jew would have done, he answers their question, “Master what should we do? And he said to them, Take no more [money] than what is appointed to you.” Notoriously they were extortioners, their rapacity was proverbial; they plundered the people of whom they were the official tax-gatherers. The soldiers similarly “asked him, saying, And we, what should we do? And he said to them, Oppress no one, nor accuse falsely; and be content with your pay.”tid=48#bkm74a- It is clear that here we are warned against violence and corruption, the two great features of men left to themselves But, besides, contentedness with their pay is pressed upon them. It is remarkable how much the spirit of contentment has to do not only with the happiness of a soul but with its holiness. There is scarcely another thing that so tends to disturb our relationship with God and man as discontent. It makes an individual ripe for any evil. It helps, on a great scale, to the revolutions of nations and other social ruptures. On a smaller scale, it subverts the equilibrium of families and the right attitude of individuals as nothing else can. So we read of “unthankful, unholy” classed together by the Spirit of God. We also find unthankfulness mentioned as leading into idolatry. The Gentiles not only did not glorify God as God, but they were unthankful, and they fell into all kinds of moral depravity. There is nothing more important than to cherish a thankfulness of heart, sanctifying the Lord God in our hearts, having confidence in His goodness, and also in the certainty that He has given to ourselves individually exactly the thing that is best for us. But the only way to be thus content, whatever may be our lot, is to look at God as dealing with us in Christ for eternity.

There is thus, under the most homely words of John the Baptist, real moral wisdom from God suitable to men’s circumstances here below. We have not here heavenly things; these are the fruit of Christ’s redemption. Nevertheless, the sketch that is given us of John the Baptist’s teaching, is eminently practical, and suited to deal with the conscience and heart. And we shall find this to be always true as we advance further in our Gospel.

Luk 3:15-18 .

Mat 3:11 , Mat 3:12 ; Joh 1:10 ff.

John the Baptist’s appearance in Israel at this moment struck them the more, because, in consequence of Daniel’s famous prophecy of the seventy weeks, and it may be other scriptures, they were at that very time waiting for the Messiah. The expectation was general over the East, no doubt through the Jews who were scattered abroad. Therefore a man so distinguished as John the Baptist was for righteousness raised the question whether he were the Christtid=48#bkm75- or not. But his answer was always distinct. He pointed to the fact of his own baptizing with water. This was peculiar to him and a sign to Israel. But even his (if I may so say) coming by water gave him the opportunity of contrasting One Who had come after a far different sort, even looking at power, not to speak of blood. Jesus “came by water and blood.” (1Jn 5:6 ). The point, however, that John contrasted with the water is His baptizing with the Holy Ghost. It was a Person infinitely greater than himself, One Whose dignity was such that the tie of His sandals he was not worthy to unloose; One not only mightier and more dignified, but Who would be distinguished by baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with fire baptizing with the Holy Ghost as the fruit of His first advent, and baptizing with fire as the accompaniment of the second. When the Lord Jesus comes again, He will baptize with fire; He will execute the solemn judgment of God upon the world. Baptizing with the Holy Ghost is what makes the Church (that is, God’s present assembly) separate from the Jew even.

The Acts of the Apostles may serve to make this particularly plain. When the disciples were with the Lord after His resurrection, He spoke to them of the things concerning the kingdom, besides giving them many infallible proofs of His own life in resurrection after His suffering. Among the rest, He told them that they were not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father. The Lord therefore distinguished John’s from His own mission by this. He baptized with the Holy Ghost, John only with water. Accordingly not many days after this, on the day of Pentecost, the baptism of the Holy Ghost became a fact. The Lord shed forth what was then seen and heard: the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they were thus baptized (as Paul afterwards taught – into one body; that is, the Church). Of the baptism with fire, you will observe, the Lord does not speak one word. The reason is that this was not to he accomplished then. When John is looking onwards, he sees both, but when Christ had actually suffered on the cross, He announces the one and not the other. Baptism with fire will take place when the Lord will be revealed from heaven “in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2Th 1:7 f.) This is plain from verse 17: “Whose winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge* his threshing floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.” This is the baptism with fire.tid=48#bkm76- “Exhorting them many other things also, he announced [his] glad tidings to the people.”

*”And he will thoroughly purge”: so ACDL, all later uncials, every cursive, and Amiat.-Edd. adopt “thoroughly to purge,” after pm B, Memph. Arm.

“Will gather”: so ACDL, later uncials, cursives, etc.; but Edd. “to gather,” with AB, Old Lat., Arm.

Luk 3:19-20 .

Then we have in Luke’s remarkable manner a compendious description of John up to his imprisonment. “But Herod the Tetrarch being reproved by him as to Herodias the wife of his brother,* and as to all the wicked things which Herod had done, added this also to all[the rest], that he shut up John in prison.” The object is to present a full picture of Johntid=48#bkm77- ; and hence Luke does not adhere to mere time any more than Matthew, does. Whatever adds to the moral description is Luke’s province. John was faithful not only to the lower classes, but also to the highest. His testimony to Christ was decisive, making nothing of his own glory in order to exalt the Lord; and he suffered for it too; he was shut up in prison because of righteousness.

*”His brother”: so Edd., after BDEL and Old Lat. – ACK and later uncials, with 33, Syrr. Memph. add “Philip.”

Luk 3:21 , Luk 3:22 .

Mat 3:13-17 ; Mar 1:9-11 .

And now the door is open for presenting Jesus. And it came to pass “all the people having been baptized, and Jesus having been baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened.” How lovely the picture! The Lord, perfect as He was, did not keep Himself aloof from the people. Morally separate from sinners, nevertheless their confession of sin, which was implied in their baptism, attracted the Lord’s heart, and He would be with them, though Himself absolutely sinless. The Holy Jesus also being baptized, and praying – so thoroughly was He found taking His place as the dependent Man upon earth, and while He was praying – the heavens were opened “and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I have found my delight.”tid=48#bkm78- The heavens had never opened before, except in judgment when Ezekiel had seen them. But there was an object upon earth that even God could look upon with delight. There was none in heaven that was adequate to draw out and fix the attention of God; nothing could solicit His complacency: a creature could not, but Jesus, because He was not only God but perfect man, was precisely what met the love of God – of His heart. It was God’s delight to look down and see a Man Who could answer to all His affections and nature and mind and judgment about everything. This is beautiful, and shows what the grace of God is in connection with His being baptized when all the people were. Man as such knows nothing of the mind of God. As the heavens are high above the earth, so are His thoughts higher than our thoughts; and the heavens now answer to Jesus on the earth, and the Holy Ghost descends upon Him.

From the very first the Holy Ghost had to do with Jesus as man; we were told so in the first chapter, where it was said (when Mary inquired how she was to be the mother of a child) that the Holy Ghost should come upon her. But Jesus was much more than thus conceived of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost descended upon Him. This is what is called by Luke, in Act 10:38 , His anointing of God: “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power.” The anointing of the Holy Ghost was not to counteract the evil of human nature – this was already secured by His miraculous conception. There was no taint of evil whatever in the humanity of Christ; all was perfectly pure, there being a total absence of sin, sin in nature as well as in act. But now there was more than this; there was the Spirit of God poured upon Him. Him God the Father sealed, and this when He was baptized, before He entered upon His public service. It was the expression of God’s perfect delight in Him, and it was also power for service. He alone of all men needed no blood to fit Him, as it were, to be anointed with the Holy oil. I speak now after the language of Exodus and Leviticus. (Exo 29:21 , Lev 8:23 f.) Others of His people would receive the Holy Ghost, but this only in virtue of blood, His atoning blood being put upon them. Where the blood was put, the oil could be. But Jesus as man receives the Holy Ghost without blood shed or sprinkled. The Holy Ghost descended upon Him in a bodily shape like a dove. I do not doubt that the outward form of the Spirit’s descent was in relation to the character of Christ, just as the cloven tongues as of fire were in relation to the place and work of the disciples on the day of Pentecost. It was not merely a tongue, but a divided tongue, showing that God was now going out to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. It was a tongue of fire, whatever the grace; it was in the Divine judgment of all evil. But in Christ’s case there is neither of these characteristics. In bodily shape the Spirit came down like a dove, the emblem of what is proverbially pure and gentle to the last degree. “Holy, harmless, undefiled,” (Heb 7:26 ) such was Christ.

But more than this the voice came from heaven which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I have found my delight.” This voice is of all importance too. It is manifested that Jesus was the delight of God as man, not merely in consequence of a work that was going to be done; it was the Person Who was owned, and His Person too after He had identified Himself with the people who were baptized. They must not mistake nor misinterpret His baptism; it was the baptism of repentance for them, but thoroughly in grace for Him. He had nothing to own. He was about to enter upon a great work, but baptism was in no way the expression of need on His part, nor to fit Him for what He was entering upon. “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased” – not only I am, but I have been well pleased, “have found my delight.” It is retrospective, and not present merely.

Luk 3:23-38 .

Then we have in a very remarkable manner the genealogy of Jesus introduced.tid=48#bkm79- It ought to strike any thoughtful mind that the Spirit of God must have sufficient reason for introducing it here. The natural place we might think for such an account of our Lord’s ancestry mould be when He was born, or even before His birth, as we have had one in Matthew. A Jew would require it there, and has it there in the first Gospel; but here it is introduced when He is baptized. The reason is just this, that the genealogy here is brought in, not so much to show whence Jesus was naturally or rather legally, to meet the difficulties of a Jew, and to prove He was truly the Messiah according to the flesh, but to bring out the Person of Jesus on the human side as the Father had just owned Him on the Divine. Accordingly, the genealogy is very peculiar in this – that it traces him up to Adam and to God. Why so? Clearly this has nothing to do with His being the Messiah; but it is expressly to manifest One Whose heart was toward the whole human race. It is the genealogy of grace, as Matthew’s is of law. It is not one traced down from the two great fountains of blessing for Israel, Abraham, and David, the stock of promise and the line of royalty. Here it is tracing Him up; this wonderful Person owned as the Son of God, Who is He? So the Spirit of God deigns to show that He was, as it was supposed (He was legitimately counted), the son of Joseph. This implies that the writer of the Gospel was perfectly aware that He was not a mere man, that He was not Joseph’s son except before the eyes of men. I presume that the genealogy was really Mary’s, but Mary being Joseph’s wife) He could be “as was supposed, the son of Joseph,” and so on. This will accord with the character of the Gospel, because the Lord Jesus was not a man in virtue of His connection with Joseph, but with Mary. The reality of His manhood depended on His being the son of Mary; nevertheless He was, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, which was of Heli. Heli, as I take it, was the father of Mary; hence the genealogy here traces Him through Nathan to David; this was His mother’s line, as it appears to me. In Matthew He is derived through Solomon, which was Joseph’s line. Therefore, as the law required, it was the father who gave Him His title, and thus He had a strict legal title to the throne of David. The great point in the Jewish system was the father. Thus Matthew gives us Joseph’s royal genealogy; but Luke furnishes the maternal line through Mary. This indeed was the real one for Christ’s humanity; and the object of Luke was to attest the grace of God displayed in the Man Christ Jesus. The humanity of Christ has the largest place throughout this Gospel.

NOTES ON THE THIRD CHAPTER.

68 Luk 3:1 . – “The fifteenth year.” This, according to the prevalent view, which takes the reckoning from A.U.C. 765, when Augustus made Tiberius joint-emperor, would be A.D. 26, see Ramsay, “Paul the Traveller,” p. 386 f.; cf. Joh 2:20 , according to which the first Passover of the Ministry fell in A.D. 30, forty-six years from A.U.C. 734.

Philip, son of Cleopatra, and married to his niece Salome (cf. note on verse 19).

69 Luk 3:2 . – “Lysanias.” Luke’s accuracy here, at one time questioned, has been confirmed by Schrer (div. i., vol. ii., Appendix 1), guided by inscriptions (cf. O. Holtzmann, p. 111). There had been another prince of the same name, who died sixty years before this (Josephus, “Antiquities,” xv. 4, 1).

70 “Annas.” He was now “Sagan,” or Deputy, although titular high priest (Act 4:6 ), the designation applied to Caiaphas in Joh 18:13 . Annas had been deposed by Valerius Gratus fifteen years earlier; but as far as the Jews were concerned his influence was but little diminished.

There is a useful plate (vi.) at the end of Sanders and Fowler’s “Outlines for the Study of Biblical History and Literature,” exhibiting the political divisions of the land at this time.

71 “Came upon” ( ), cf. Jer 1:1 . The Baptist seems to have begun his ministry in 26.A.D.

72 “The country about Jordan,” cf. Gen 13:10 f. It is a phrase representing the depressed valley of that river.

73 Luk 3:4 ff. – Luke cites Isa 40 in the LXX., including at the close a part of verse 5 there, which Box, in his recent edition of the Prophet, has left out as “superfluous, and not agreeing rhythmically with the rest of the Prologue” – a curious instance of modern subjectivity.

“All flesh” (verse 6), i.e., the main divisions of mankind – Gentiles as well as Jews (cf. Act 2:17 ).

“The salvation of God,” i.e., the Messianic salvation, cf. Ps. 1. 23; Luk 1:69 above; and Joh 4:22 ; also note 192.

74 Luk 3:8 f. – “We have Abraham,” etc., cf. Joh 8:33 , Joh 8:39 . Montefiore confesses that his ancestors at that time “were somewhat too confident of eternal life; all Israelites except determined sinners were believed to have their share in it” (Hibbert Lectures, 1892, p. 482).

On the words “not producing good fruit,” see Maclaren, B. C. E., p. 45.

74a Luk 3:14 . – Strange use was made of the Baptist’s words here by Pope Pius X. on the occasion of addressing a mixed company of British bluejackets, Catholic and Protestant, in May, 1908. “When it was asked,” said the Pontiff, “in Holy Scripture what it was necessary for a man to do to be saved, the answer was, that it was sufficient for him to perform the duties to which he had been born. I repeat the same thing to you” (Reuter). Could such language be frankly endorsed by Catholic any more than by Evangelical sentiment?

“Oppress . . . falsely.” American Revv., “Extort . . . by violence . . . wrongfully.”

75 Luk 3:15 . – Here arises another question discussed by Germans – as to when our Lord’s Messianic claim was first asserted. The present passage harmonizes completely with Joh 1:19-27 , as to which see note 27 in the volume for that Gospel.

76 Luk 3:16 . – “Fire” (cf. Luk 12:49 ). The Expositor’s explanation may be ranged with that of Origen, Neander, van Oosterzee, B. Weiss, Schanz, and H. Holtzmann. That the reference is to inner regeneration, was the view of Grotius, Bengel, and Godet.

77 Luk 3:19 f. – Luke here follows the manner of O.T. chroniclers. Cf. the way in which Isaac’s story is dismissed in Gen 35:28 f.; the patriarch did not really die then. And so in Luk 24:50 , which does not mean that our Lord ascended at that point.

“His brother’s,” i.e., Philip’s, Mar 7:17 . Herod I. had two sons named “Philip” (cf. note 68). The one here referred to was son of Mariamne (ibid.). Burkitt (“Earliest Sources,” p. 86) speaks of Mark’s “mistake” being “silently corrected here.” Now, while Josephus speaks of Antipas also as “Herod” (“Antiqq.,” xviii. 5), the Jewish historian had previously (xvii. 32) spoken of Herod’s “son Herod Philip by the high priest’s daughter,” a passage which the Cambridge professor must have overlooked.

“Added this also to all,” so American Revv., with “them” before “all,” instead of “added yet this above all,” retained by the Westminster Committee.

See Whyte, op. cit., for discourse on “John the Baptist” (LXXIII.).

78 Luk 3:22 . – “My beloved Son.” Rather, “my son, the Beloved” as Allen (on Mat 3:17 ), treating “the Beloved” as a Divine name. Cf. note below on Luk 9:35 .

The solitary reading of “D.” “This day have I begotten thee” (see Psa 2:7 , used by Paul of the Resurrection, Act 13:33 ), arose out of the second century idea that Jesus became Son of God at baptism. Connected with this is the observance in the Eastern Church of the Lord’s birth on “Epiphany” (6th January) as also commemorating His baptism. What is clear however, is that His baptism “marked His awakening of all that was involved in Messiahship” – a statement not weakened by the strictures of Stock (p. 58 f., see Isa 1:4 ff., Fairbairn, “Studies,” p. 90 f.). This reading, recognized by Augustine, but supported only by some old Latin versions – not by the Syriac of Sinai; naturally suits writers such as Pfleiderer (op. cit., p. 407; cf. Harnack, “Sayings,” p. 311 f.) as militating against the miraculous conception.

“In a bodily shape like a dove,” cf. Gen 1:2 . This phenomenon would have the more interest for Luke, because of his probable early associations; in Syria the dove was a totem.

Bishop Andrewes preached from verse 21 f., Hooker, on the Personality of the Holy Ghost, from verse 22.

79 Luk 3:23 ff. – . The R.V. “began [to teach]” gives effect to the explanation of Origen, followed by Bengel, De Wette, Meyer, and Alford.

“Thirty years old,” cf. Num 4:3 , etc.

The GENEALOGY. – , as He was accounted, i.e., in the eyes of the Law. The Revv. have followed Alford in making the parenthesis end with , instead of after as Wieseler, amongst others, followed by the Expositor, and since by Plumptre and Gloag. The curtailed parenthesis of course tends to produce the impression that the genealogy, like that in Matthew, is of Joseph. Several English writers (Lord A. Hervey, Alford, Farrar, etc.), with Germans such as Meyer and Hofmann, during the last fifty years have attempted to establish the Patristic view (of Origen and Jerome), which has actually encumbered the subject with needless difficulty. The difference of opinion has a curious history.

The Jews, in controversy with the early Christians, accepted that which seems to have been the primitive view, that the second of the genealogies concerns the mother of our Lord. The Talmud speaks of her as “daughter of Heli” (verse 23). They ignored Matthew’s genealogy, which seemed to them to make for our Lord’s being born in wedlock, whilst their aim – in a spirit of prejudice, and with motives of hostility – was to show that He was a child of shame. Hence Christian controversialists had recourse to the expedient of treating Luke’s genealogy also as one of Joseph; it seemed to enable them to suggest that there was a Levirate marriage on the part of Jacob or Heli, who were supposed to have been half-brothers, sons of Matthan (Matthat), i.e., the survivor of them, it was thought, married the other’s widow: Euseb., “Eccl. Hist.,” i. 7, 4; cf. Schleiermacher, p. 56.

This necessarily hypothetical position was not overcome until the closing years of the fifteenth century, when the original view, so obscured by anti-Jewish feeling, was revived. This has been adopted by, amongst others, Godet, B. Weiss, Plumptre, Spence and Gloag. One objection raised to it is that put forward by De Wette (followed by Plummer), that women’s registers were not kept, but proof to the contrary is afforded by the case of Judith (viii. 1), whose lineage is given for fourteen generations before her father. Women were respected much more in Israel than among other nations; disparagement of them (see Jewish Prayer Book, p. 6) is due to the Talmudists. Indeed, it would be difficult to understand how the Jews in early Christian times could with any plausibility have turned Luke’s genealogy to account, had the public records regarded males alone.

Such is the irony of events that German critics, adverse to the idea of miraculous conception, deem it expedient to regard the genealogy in Matthew as dominating interpretation of that in Luke, just as of old it happened to be convenient for Jews to treat the second genealogy as applying the lineage of Mary.

B. Weiss well remarks (“Sources of Luke’s Gospel,” p. 198, note), that the Evangelist could not have committed the absurdity (in the eyes of Gentiles) of giving the genealogy of JESUS through Joseph (as Alford insists), if, as is clear he did, Luke considered Him only His foster-father’s reputed Son. Luke was not writing for Jews, and therefore is as not under such limitations as Matthew.

The prophetical words in verse 23 are not those of an interpolator, as most contemporary German writers suggest, but those of Luke himself as editor: so even Renan.

Mary’s being spoken of as “of the house of David” (Luk 1:27 ; cf. note 26) finds its justification in this genealogy (cf. Rom 1:3 ). Joseph is here scarcely mentioned: the Evangelist could not have come in contact with one so long dead. It is not Joseph’s but Mary’s hesitation that he dwells upon.

The Davidic claim (verse 31, cf. 2Sa 5:14 , Zec 12:12 ) of Solomon’s line represented by Jeconiah was barred by that king’s childlessness (Jer 22:30 ), so that the succession passed to that of Nathan, represented by Salathiel, whose actual father was Neri (verse 27).

Difficulties arising from comparison of the two genealogies are due chiefly to a mistaken ecclesiastical standpoint. Any reader may see that, whilst these mechanically agree from Abraham to David, they do not from David to Jeconiah. “Rhesa” in verse 27 is now known to have not been a personal name: in Aramaic it stood for some “prince” of the captivity whose name seems to have been Abiud (Mat 1:13 ), son of the most notable descendant of David since the exile – Zerubbabel. See further the helpful note of Plumptre, ad loc. in Ellicott’s “N.T. Commentary for English Readers.” “[The Son] of God” at the end bears a double sense (see verses 32 and 35 of Luk 1 ).

There seems never to have been any actual error discovered, as distinct from “constructive” mistake alleged, in either genealogy. Men like Celsus (circ. 150 A.D.) and Porphyry (circ. 300 A.D.) did not question them when these records had an importance which they do not possess for our age. Tatian’s omission of them altogether is an eccentricity of his “Diatessaron,” due, of course, to his difficulty in “harmonizing” them.

Reference may further be made to Gloag, p. 253 ff., and to W. Kelly’s “God’s Inspiration, etc.,” p. 61.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

Luke

JOHN THE PREACHER OF REPENTANCE

Luk 3:1 – Luk 3:14 .

Why does Luke enumerate so carefully the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in Luk 3:1 – Luk 3:2 ? Not only to fix the date, but, in accordance with the world-wide aspect of his Gospel, to set his narrative in relation with secular history; and, further, to focus into one vivid beam of light the various facts which witnessed to the sunken civil and darkened moral and religious condition of the Jews. What more needed to be said to prove how the ancient glory had faded, than that they were under the rule of such a delegate as Pilate, of such an emperor as Tiberius, and that the bad brood of Herod’s descendants divided the sacred land between them, and that the very high-priesthood was illegally administered, so that such a pair as Annas and Caiaphas held it in some irregular fashion between them? It was clearly high time for John to come, and for the word of God to come to him.

The wilderness had nourished the stern, solitary spirit of the Baptist, and there the consciousness of his mission and his message ‘came to him’-a phrase which at once declares his affinity with the old prophets. Out of the desert he burst on the nation, sudden as lightning, and cleaving like it. Luke says nothing as to his garb or food, but goes straight to the heart of his message, ‘The baptism of repentance unto remission of sins,’ in which expression the ‘remission’ depends neither on ‘baptism’ alone, nor on ‘repentance’ alone. The outward act was vain if unaccompanied by the state of mind and will; the state of mind was proved genuine by submitting to the act.

In Luk 3:7 – Luk 3:14 John’s teaching as the preacher of repentance is summarised. Why did he meet the crowds that streamed out to him with such vehement rebuke? One would have expected him to welcome them, instead of calling them ‘offspring of vipers,’ and seeming to be unwilling that they should flee from the wrath to come. But Luke tells why. They wished to be baptized, but there is no word of their repentance. Rather, they were trusting to their descent as exempting them from the approaching storm, so that their baptism would not have been the baptism which John required, being devoid of repentance. Just because they thought themselves safe as being ‘children of Abraham,’ they deserved John’s rough name, ‘ye offspring of vipers.’

Rabbinical theology has much to say about ‘the merits of the fathers.’ John, like every prophet who had ever spoken to the nation of judgments impending, felt that the sharp edge of his words was turned by the obstinate belief that judgments were for the Gentile, and never would touch the Jew. Do we not see the same unbelief that God can ever visit England with national destruction in full force among ourselves? Not the virtues of past generations, but the righteousness of the present one, is the guarantee of national exaltation.

John’s crowds were eager to be baptized as an additional security, but were slow to repent. If heaven could be secured by submitting to a rite, ‘multitudes’ would come for it, but the crowd thins quickly when the administrator of the rite becomes the vehement preacher of repentance. That is so to-day as truly as it was so by the fords of Jordan. John demanded not only repentance, but its ‘fruits,’ for there is no virtue in a repentance which does not change the life, were such possible.

Repentance is more than sorrow for sin. Many a man has that, and yet rushes again into the old mire. To change the mind and will is not enough, unless the change is certified to be real by deeds corresponding. So John preached the true nature of repentance when he called for its fruits. And he preached the greatest motive for it which he knew, when he pressed home on sluggish consciences the close approach of a judgment for which everything was ready, the axe ground to a fine edge, and lying at the root of the trees. If it lay there, there was no time to lose; if it still lay, there was time to repent before it was swinging round the woodman’s head. We have a higher motive for repentance in ‘the goodness of God’ leading to it. But there is danger that modern Christianity should think too little of ‘the terror of the Lord,’ and so should throw away one of the strongest means of persuading men. John’s advice to the various classes of hearers illustrates the truth that the commonest field of duty and the homeliest acts may become sacred. Not high-flying, singular modes of life, abandoning the vulgar tasks, but the plainest prose of jog-trot duty will follow and attest real repentance. Every calling has its temptations-that is to say, every one has its opportunities of serving God by resisting the Devil.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Luk 3:1-6

1Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, 2in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. 3And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; 4as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight. 5Every ravine will be filled, And every mountain and hill will be brought low; The crooked will become straight, And the rough roads smooth; 6And all flesh will see the salvation of God.'”

Luk 3:1 “fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar” The exact date is unsure, but a date between A.D. 27 to A.D. 29 is possible.

Tiberius controlled the provinces two years before Augustus’ death, however, he reigned from A.D. 14-37.

It is obvious that Luk 3:1-2 are Luke’s way of precisely dating this event. Luke is far more concerned with corroborating the gospel events with secular history than any other NT author. Christianity is a historically based religion. It stands or falls on the “eventness” which the Bible records.

“Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea” See Special Topic below.

SPECIAL TOPIC: PONTIUS PILATE

“Herod was tetrarch of Galilee” Herod Antipas, 4 B.C. – A.D. 39, was called governor or tetrarch. He was removed by Caligula for changing his title to “King.” See Special Topic below.

SPECIAL TOPIC: THE FAMILY OF HEROD THE GREAT

“Philip was tetrarch of the region” Of Herod’s children, Philip, 4 B.C. – A.D. 34, was the best ruler.

“Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene” This person is mentioned only here in the NT. Josephus mentions an earlier son of Ptolemy, who ruled Chalcis, which included Abila (but not Abilene), beginning in 40 B.C. (cf. Josephus, Antiq. 15.4.1 and 14.13.3).

However, an inscription from Abilene specifically mentions a tetrarch named Lysanias. This inscription is from A.D. 11 or A.D. 14-29. Josephus also mentions a Lysanias connected to Abila (cf. Antiq. 19.5.1; 20.7.1; and Jewish Wars 2.11.5; 2.12.8). Again Luke’s historicity is confirmed.

Abilene is north of Galilee and was originally part of Herod the Great’s territory.

Luk 3:2 “high priesthood of Annas” His name in Greek is Hannas; Josephus calls him Hannanos. The name seems to come from the Hebrew “merciful” or “gracious” (hnn).

In the OT the high priest served for life and had to come from the lineage of Aaron. However, the Romans had turned this office into a political plum, purchased by a Levitical family. The high priest controlled and operated the merchandising in the Court of the Women. Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple angered this family.

According to Flavius Josephus, Annas was the High Priest from A.D. 6-14. He was appointed by Quirinius, governor of Syria and removed by Valerius Gratus. His relatives (5 sons and 1 grandson) succeeded him. Caiaphas (A.D. 18-36), his son-in-law (cf. Joh 18:13), was his immediate successor. Annas was the real power behind the office. John depicts him as the first person to whom Jesus is taken (cf. Joh 18:13; Joh 18:19-22).

“Caiaphas” Caiaphas was the High Priest, appointed by Rome in exchange for a price, from A.D. 18-36. He was the son-in-law of Annas, High Priest from A.D. 6-15. This powerful family was motivated more by politics and wealth than by spirituality. It is unfair to judge all Sadducees or, for that matter, the Sanhedrin, by them.

“the word of God” This is an OT formula for God speaking to the prophets (e.g., Jer 1:2). Here it is used for God’s message through the last OT prophet, John the Baptist.

“in the wilderness” He was possibly a member of or a visitor to the Essene community (cf. Mar 1:4; Mat 3:1). The wilderness was also the regular habitation of Elijah. John looked, acted, and lived like Elijah. Jesus will say he fulfills the prophecies recorded in Malachi 3-4 about the coming of Elijah before the Messiah (cf. Mat 11:14; Mat 17:10-13).

Luk 3:3 “baptism” The first century Palestinian background to water baptism was possibly

1. the Essene community (i.e., Dead Sea Scrolls)

2. proselyte baptism for Gentiles converts

3. a symbol of cleansing in Judaism (cf. Isa 1:16)

“repentance” See Special Topic below.

SPECIAL TOPIC: REPENTANCE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

“forgiveness” This is a form of the common Greek term aphim, often used of forgiving sin (cf. Luk 5:20-21; Luk 5:23-24; Luk 7:47-48). This was also a medical term (aphesis) for the relaxing of disease (cf. Luk 4:39). Luke uses aphesis often in his writings but it appears only once in Matthew, twice in Mark, not in John at all, and only twice in Paul’s writings.

John’s task was to call Israel back from sin and faithless ritual to personal faith. His message was targeted to the covenant people who had repeatedly broken and misunderstood YHWH’s covenant mercy and love. John accentuated the spiritual need that only Jesus could meet!

SPECIAL TOPIC: WORDS FOR FORGIVENESS

Luk 3:4-6 This is a quote from Isa 40:3-5. Only Luke gives the full quote of Luk 3:4-5; the other Gospels quote only Luk 3:3. This shows Luke’s consistent universalism of the gospel for all people.

Notice the relevant aspects of the OT quote:

1. John was from the “wilderness.”

2. John was to prepare the people for the message and ministry of Jesus the Messiah.

3. All obstacles to God, here symbolized by physical barriers, are to be removed.

4. “All flesh” will see and have available God’s salvation.

Luk 3:4 “it is written” this perfect passive indicative of graph was a Hebrew idiom used to introduce a quote from the OT. The Greek graph was often used to describe Scripture in the NT (cf. Luk 4:21; Luk 24:27; Luk 24:32).

“in the book” This is the Greek word biblos (cf. Luk 20:42), from which we get the English word “book,” and later “Bible,” but here it refers to a parchment scroll (cf. Luk 4:20; Rev 5:1-5).

“Make ready the way” This is an aorist active imperative, which denotes urgency. In the Masoretic Hebrew text, Lord (i.e., adon) is read, but YHWH is in the text. The phrase originally referred to physical preparation for a royal visit (cf. Isa 57:14; Isa 62:10). It came to refer metaphorically to the ministry of John the Baptist spiritually preparing the way for Jesus the Messiah, who is also called “Lord” (i.e., kurios).

“of the Lord” New Testament writers regularly attribute OT writings about YHWH to Jesus.

“Make His paths straight” The Masoretic Text and Septuagint have “make straight the paths of our God.” Mark (or Peter) modified the text (or quotes an unknown textual form) to make it specifically relate to Jesus, not YHWH (Luke uses Mark’s Gospel here).

Luk 3:5 The imagery of this verse can be understood in two ways:

1. Historically it is used of preparing a road for a royal visit.

2. Eschatologically it is used of all physical barriers being removed for God’s people to be gathered to Himself.

Luk 3:6 “‘all flesh will see the salvation of God'” “Salvation” is from the Septuagint; Matthew has “glory” (cf. Luk 3:30-32). Universal salvation (i.e., for all who repent and believe) is being emphasized by Luke, who is writing for a Gentile audience.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

in. Greek. en. App-104. fifteenth . . . Tiberius. See App-179, note 2. Augustus died in A.D. 14, Tiberius was associated with him for two or three years. This would make Tiberius’s fifteenth year A.D. 26 reign government. Greek hegemonia (not basileia = kingdom).

Pontius Pilate. First mention. sixth Procurator of Judaea, A.D. 25. After his deposition, he went to Rome, and (according toEusebius) committed suicide in A.D. 36. goverinor. Cognate word with “reign “above.

Herod . . Philip. See App-109. Herod Antipas, half-brother of Philip I, who abducted Philip’s wife, Herodias, and married her. This was the Herod to whom the Lord was sent for trial.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

1-22.] PREACHING AND BAPTISM OF JOHN. DIVINE TESTIMONY TO JESUS AT HIS BAPTISM. Mat 3:1-17. Mar 1:4-11.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Shall we turn to Luke’s gospel chapter 3.

As Luke begins the third chapter, he is giving you the date of the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist, and he uses no less than six historic references points to tell you when John began his ministry.

It was in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was the governor of Judea, and Herod was the tetrarch ( Luk 3:1 )

And the word “tetrarch” means a ruler of a fourth part. And when Herod the Great died, he left the ruling of that area, they divided it into four, and three of his sons ruled over a part of the area. So a tetrarch was a ruler of a fourth part, and Philip the tetrarch of Iturea, Herod the tetrarch of Galilee,

and his brother Philip the tetrarch of Iturea in the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests ( Luk 3:1-2 ),

And so these were the historic dating reference points.

Now we know that Tiberius Ceasar began his reign in the years 13-14. So that in the fifteenth year would make it about the year 29 A.D. that John the Baptist began his ministry.

It is interesting that he lists for us here two high priests, Annas and Caiaphas. The Jews only had one high priest at the time. However, Annas was the high priest for a period of time, around 13-14, but he was replaced by the Roman government. And there followed him three different high priests before the Roman government appointed Caiaphas as the high priest. So that Caiaphas was an appointment of Rome, whereas Annas was recognized by the people as the high priest. And he was the religious leader, where Caiaphas was as was the high priest in those days, a political leader under the appointment of Rome. So there was this period when, oddly enough, there were two high priests. One recognized by the Jews as the legitimate, the other recognized by the Roman government as the political appointee, Caiaphas.

Now when they arrested Jesus, they brought Him to Annas first, because He was still the power. He was the recognized power. And Caiaphas was more less a figurehead, but the recognized power was in Annas the older, the high priest. Caiaphas was actually one of his sons.

Herod being the tetrarch of Galilee, this was Herod Antipas, and we’ll come across him in just a few moments again. And so in this time,

the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness ( Luk 3:2 ).

Now we were introduced to John last Sunday night, and to his miraculous kind of birth, as his mother and father were both of them well stricken in years. And up to this point, Elisabeth his mother had been barren. And the announcement of the angel concerning the birth of the child, who was to be the forerunner of the Messiah.

So now in the year 29, the word of the Lord came unto John.

And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sin; as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight ( Luk 3:3-4 ).

Now in those days when the king was to visit a certain area, there would always be couriers that would go out in advance of the king, and the couriers would tell the people, “The king is going to be visiting on such and such a day, clean up your yards, get the trash and all, all taken care of, repair the roads, and all, for the king’s coming.” So that when the king comes, he will see everything in a nice condition, the yard is clean, the trash is all out, and all of the roads repaired, no chuckholes or whatever, so that the king sees that everything’s is going well. And so John is as a courier, telling the people, “Make your path straight, the King is coming.”

Every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hills shall be brought low; the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth ( Luk 3:5 );

Preparing the way for the King.

And all flesh shall see the salvation of God ( Luk 3:6 ).

This was the promise that John was giving to the people. As they were to prepare themselves, they would see God’s salvation. And, of course, that was fulfilled through Jesus Christ.

Then he said to the multitude that came forth to be baptized, O generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ( Luk 3:7 )

Imagine telling that your congregation, people are coming to be converted. And you say, “Oh, you generation of vipers.” Sounds like Romaine almost, doesn’t it? “You sinners, you know.” Romaine is our John.

“Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

Bring forth therefore fruits that are worthy of repentance ( Luk 3:8 ),

Or that demonstrate repentance, let us see your true repentance. Not in the fact that you just being baptized, let’s see it in your actions, let’s see it in your changed lives.

There are many people who, upon the excitement of an emotional moment, will renounce their life of sin, will renounce their past. And will make their vows of, “I am going to be different, I am going to do better. I promise; I swear before God, I am going to be a different man.” Words are cheap. John said, “Let’s see the fruit of it. Let’s see the changes in your life.” And calling for more than just a verbal-type of a commitment, but let’s see the fruit of it in the changed lives.

and don’t say within yourselves, [he said] That we have Abraham as our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham ( Luk 3:8 ).

Now this is the claim of the Jews: “We have Abraham as our father. God gave the covenant to Abraham and to his seed forever. So we are the beneficiaries of God’s grace and covenant to Abraham. We have Abraham; we are the covenant people.” And they rested on that relationship to Abraham. And that was an extremely important thing. In fact, to Jesus, when Jesus was challenging their lifestyles, they said, “We have Abraham as our father.” It was a common saying among the Jews. As they were resting upon the covenant that God had made with Abraham and to his seed forever, and thus, recognizing that covenant they would say, “Well, we have Abraham as our father.” And that was sort of to excuse any kind of a lifestyle I want to live. “Well, I have Abraham as my father, I am under the covenant, and I can live however I please.” And he said, “Hey, don’t try and pass off that we have Abraham as our father bit, because God is able to raise up from stones children for Abraham.” And so he is calling for a true repentance, a changed life, changed actions.

And now also the ax will be laid unto the root of the trees: and every tree which does not bring forth good fruit will be caught down ( Luk 3:9 ),

So he is calling for fruit that show repentance. Let’s see the fruit of it, because every tree that doesn’t bring forth good fruit will be cut down.

and cast into the fire. And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? ( Luk 3:9-10 )

And as we find his responses to the questions, we find that John was preaching a social gospel.

He answered and said unto them, If you have two coats, give one of those to someone who doesn’t have any; and if you have extra meat, do the same thing [share your abundance with the needy]. And then the tax collectors came to be baptized, and they said unto him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you ( Luk 3:11-13 ).

Now the tax collectors were appointees of the Roman government, and their pay was actually the excess taxes that they could collect. The Roman government had the certain standard that they had to collect. I mean that was just the tax due to Rome. But the tax collector would collect his own salary by adding to that tax. And that is why they were extremely hated by the people. They haven’t found much more favor even today. Taxes are always a galling thing. But John is telling them, “Look, don’t collect the extra dividends, just that which is appointed you.”

And the soldiers likewise demanded, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages. And as all the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he was the Messiah, or not; John answered them, saying unto them, I indeed baptize you with water; but one who is mightier than I is coming, the latched of whose shoes I am not worthy to untie: and he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable ( Luk 3:14-17 ).

So as they are wondering, “Can this be the Messiah?” John declares unto them that he is really not the Messiah. That there is one that is coming after him who is mightier than he is. John is unworthy to untie His shoes. And though John is baptizing with water, He will baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

That baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire has been misunderstood, and as a result, we see a lot of fanaticism that is classified the baptism of fire. If a person, if a preacher in his preaching is very demonstrative, if he is shouting out his message from the top of his lungs, speaking rapidly, and sucking for air, and going on with a lot of movement and a lot of hand waving and a lot of pointing with the fingers and everything else, people say, “Man, he is really got the fire.” That isn’t the fire of the Holy Spirit; that can be fire of human energy, but not the fire of the Holy Spirit. So many times we see untoward type of demonstrations, usually in a violent kind of an emotional way, and people say, “Oh, oh, boy, they really got the fire.” Not of the Holy Spirit.

The fire of the Holy Spirit is always a purging fire, a cleansing fire. You may want to scream, but not in excitement, but in pain, as the fire of the Holy Spirit begins to burn in your heart, because the purpose of that fire is the purging of the dross. It always has as its net result purifying. And in the context here as he speaks of Him baptizing with fire, he declares, “Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor.” Now this is the threshing floor.

The fan was the large wide wooden shovel that they would take and take the wheat with the shovel, and they would throw the wheat in the air. And the wind would carry of the chaff, and the wheat would fall back down on the floor. And this was their way of threshing the wheat. Just wait for a windy day, and you go down to your threshing floor. You take what they call the fan, the big wide wooden shovel, and you just take the wheat in the wind, throw it up in the air, and the chaff would blow off, and the wheat would fall down. And you continue this process until you’d separated that little rough bran from the kernel of wheat itself.

And then he declared He will thoroughly cleanse, or purge His floor, and will gather the wheat into His silo, in to His garner, but He will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.

He, no doubt, is eluding to the first chapter of Psalms, where David talks about the blessed man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law does he meditate day and night. Who will be like a tree, planted by the river of water, bringing forth fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not withering, and whatsoever he does shall prosper. The wicked though, he said, are not so, but are like the chaff, which the wind driveth away.

So it is again a figure of purging, of cleansing, separating the chaff from the wheat. Separating the dross, the fire from the pure gold. So it is only proper that in context it is explained what is meant by the baptism of the Holy Spirit with fire.

And many other things in his exhortation he preached unto the people. But Herod the tetrarch [Herod Antipas], being reproved by him for Herodias his brother Philip’s wife, and for all of the evils which Herod had done, added yet this above everything else, in that he imprisoned John ( Luk 3:18-20 ).

Herod Antipas, one of the sons of Herod the Great, his brother Philip ruled in the northern part of the province. He had another brother who lived in Rome. Now Herod the Great had many wives, many children. And one of his sons had a daughter named Herodias. Now the Herod who lived in Rome married his half niece Herodias, but when Herod Antipas, the character that we are dealing with in our text, went to Rome, he seduced her into marrying him, leaving his brother, marrying him, and returning with him to reign in Galilee. Which she did. So Herodias left her husband, who was also her step uncle, and she was actually a step sister-in-law to Herod Antipas, and also his step niece, but she became his wife. So it was quite an entangled situation. So your wife is also your niece and your sister-in-law. So John the Baptist dared to speak up against him. Now just didn’t speak up against the rulers. But John being the type that he was, spoke out against this relationship, said, “You have no right having Herodias as your wife, that’s wrong. What you did was wrong.” And so as the result, Herod imprisoned John.

Now when all of the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened ( Luk 3:21 ),

Now Luke’s gospel shows to us more than any of the other gospels the human side of Jesus. John shows us more than any of the other gospels the divine side of Jesus. But Luke points out His humanity. And because Luke is careful to point out the humanity of Jesus, he is also very careful to point out the references where Jesus was praying. And in so many cases we find Luke making mention of the fact that Jesus was praying when certain things transpired. Or before certain decisions were made. And Luke gives us a keener insight into the prayer life of Jesus than any of the other gospels. And rightly so, because of his emphasis upon the human side of the nature of Jesus. And so it is only Luke’s gospel that points out the fact that Jesus was praying when He was baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit. That as He was baptized, He was praying, and the heavens were opened.

And the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased ( Luk 3:22 ).

And so again, we find the tri-unity of God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Jesus, the Son of God, being baptized; the Holy Spirit descending upon Him; and the voice of the Father declaring, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased.”

Now there are those people who are known as “Jesus Only.” You don’t run across many of them here in California, they are often called “The United Pentecostals.” There is an awful lot of them back in the southern states, and quite a group of them in Arizona, “The United Pentecostal Church,” or they take some even longer titles, “The United Pentecostal Church in Jesus’ Name,” and different titles. But their chief doctrinal difference is their belief that Jesus is the Father, He is the Holy Spirit, He is the Son, there is only one, and that is Jesus, it’s Jesus only. It’s interesting to bring up this particular verse to them, to hear double talk.

When Jesus was baptized and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him, where did the voice come from? When the Father said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” was Jesus practicing ventriloquism? And they really can dig a hole for themselves on this particular verse. And it’s fun; I do it to tease them every once in a while, watch them dig their hole.

Now Jesus at this point was about thirty years old. How long John was baptizing before Jesus came, we are not informed.

But Jesus at this point being about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the [and this should read,] son-in-law of Heli ( Luk 3:23 ),

For here we obviously have the genealogy of Mary and not of Joseph. In Matthew’s gospel we have the genealogy of Joseph. And in Matthew’s gospel the genealogy begins not with Adam, but with Abraham coming down through David, and from David through Solomon, coming to Jesus Christ. Now here we start with Jesus, and we go back to Adam, not to Abraham. But we go all the way back to Adam. Now you’ll find that the genealogy between Abraham and David is the same. However, in the genealogy here in Luke, rather than coming through Solomon, it comes through Nathan, Solomon’s older brother. And we come to Mary, the mother of Jesus, Joseph, the son-in-law of Heli.

Now why would we have two genealogies for Jesus differing? And if Joseph isn’t the father of Jesus, then what is the value of putting Joseph’s genealogy in the record? If He was born of the virgin Mary, I can understand Mary’s genealogy. Let it be said that the person’s genealogy was an important document in that person’s life among the Jews. God had a special purpose for the Jewish nation. That special purpose was that they were to bring the Messiah into the world. And thus, as God established His covenant with them, and His law, He incorporated within that law and within that covenant a very close guarding of the race itself. And the prohibitions against inner racial marriages, because God was seeking to keep a line from Abraham and David to the Messiah. For anyone to declare themselves to be the Messiah they must prove that they are descendents of Abraham, and descendents of David, because God promised to both Abraham, and to David that from their seed the nations of the world would be blessed.

God said to David, “I will build thee a house, and there will always be one sitting upon the throne.” And He was referring to the Messiah. So that the Messiah has to be able to prove.

Now there in the time of the return from the captivity in Babylon, Ezra and Nehemiah, there were certain men who said, “Well, we’re of the house of Levi, we want to exercise the office of the priesthood.” And so they said, “Alright, show us your genealogy.” And these fellows were unable to produce their genealogies. They had been lost in Babylon. And because they could not produce their genealogies proving that they were of the tribe of Levi, they were not allowed into the priesthood. Only those that could bring out their genealogy, and prove that they were from the tribe of Levi. And so it was an extremely important thing to those people to maintain the records, the family records of their genealogies, in order that they might prove what family, what line they came from. It was especially important for the Messiah.

Now it would immediately put a disclaimer upon anyone today claiming to be the Messiah, because no one today has their records that can take them back to Abraham and David. So anyone who would come along saying, “I am the Messiah” would have no ability to prove that claim, inasmuch, there are no more records that would trace them back through Abraham and David.

Now why Joseph’s genealogy? If you notice, Joseph’s genealogy comes through Solomon and the kingly line. So that it brings you down to Jesus from the line of Solomon, and the kingly line showing that Jesus as the adopted son, the eldest adopted son of Joseph, had right to the title to the king of Israel. As the oldest adopted son of Joseph. But as the son of Mary, coming through Nathan, who was the older brother of Solomon, Nathan was the legal heir of David. And so through Mary He received His legal heirship through David. But through the adopted sonship of Joseph He received the kingly right.

Now during the later part of the time of the kings in Judea, in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 22, because of the wickedness of the king Jeconiah, God placed a curse upon him, and this curse that God placed upon Jeconiah precluded any of his descendants taking the throne in Israel. The last verse of Jer 22:1-30 , “Thus saith the Lord, ‘Write ye (concerning Jeconiah) this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.'” From Jeconiah it was cut off. And none of his sons sat upon the throne. And from this word of the Lord, none of his descendants could sit upon the throne.

Now if you will read the genealogy of Joseph in Matthew, you will find out he was a descendant of Jeconiah. So he could not sit upon the throne. If He were from the bloodline of Jeconiah, the actual son of Joseph, but being the adopted son of Joseph, and yet, the son of Mary through Nathan and David, He had the legal claim to the house of David. Plus He could take and sit upon the throne as the eldest son of Joseph, yet not be of the seed of Jeconiah. So it’s fascinating that God would put both records in, so He can sit as the King, because He is the adopted eldest son of Joseph, but He also has the legal right, because He is the son of Mary, virgin-born.

So Luke gives us that genealogy through Mary and gives the names of all these people, and we are not going to go through them. But it is interesting that he goes all the way back to Adam, so that where Matthew relates Him only to the Jewish race, Luke relates Him to the world. Because we are all descendants of Adam. So all of us are related to Jesus, as Luke makes the relationship of Jesus to the world, and thus, we can each one identify being Jew or Gentile, because He comes basically from Adam. We all relate to Him and can relate to Him. Now if there were two hundred and four cities, the population of 10,000 plus, it would take a good while to get around to all of these fairly good sized little communities, two hundred and four of them, to preach in the synagogues throughout the area of Galilee.

So next week we’ll enter into chapter 5 and chapter 6.

May the Lord be with you and bless you and give you a beautiful week and fill your life with praises and thanksgiving unto God for all His goodness. And we are entering into that difficult time of year known as Christmas, when there are so many extra pressures, so much pushing and shoving and crowded parking lots and people go insane. May the Lord keep you cool and may the true spirit of Christmas just fill your heart. God protect and keep you from getting caught up in the spirit of the age and may you rather be controlled with the Spirit of Christ walking with Him, walking in His love, as a light shining in a dark place. In Jesus’ name. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Luk 3:1-7. Now in the fifteenth yea of the reign of Tiberias Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; as it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filed and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned yea to flee from the wrath to come?

Does not John the Baptist speak like Elijah? Here are no honeyed phrases to delight the popular ear. The prophet of the wilderness talks like one who is all on fire with zeal for God, and indignation against evil.

Luk 3:8-11. Bring forth therefore worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn is laid down, and cast into the fire. And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.

John was wonderfully practical in his advocacy of a holy charity and benevolence. His words cut against all greed, all hoarding, all hardening of the heart towards our fellow men.

Luk 3:12-13. Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.

They were accustomed to gather the taxes unfairly, and to increase the rates by oppressing the people, getting, perhaps, twice or even ten times more out of them than they could legally claim. John speaks to the point, does he not?

Luk 3:14. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do And he said unto them, Do violence to no man,

Those rough Roman soldiers, as they had conquered the country, were very apt to treat the people as though they were their slaves; so John says to them, Do violence to no man,

Luk 3:14. Neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wage

With your rations, your allowances, so it runs. They were very apt to be contending for an increase in their pay, and to drag civilians before the courts with false accusations unless they chose to give them bribes to let them go. John does not mince matters with any of his hearers; he speaks with wonderful plainness and courage, and therein proves himself to be a true herald of his Master.

Luk 3:15-18. And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not; John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable. And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people.

This exposition consisted of readings from Luk 1:5-17; Luk 3:1-18.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Luk 3:1. , in the year) The most important of all epochs of the Church: Mar 1:1 (Comp. 1Ki 6:1 as to the epoch of the temple); with which also the thirtieth year of Christ is associated, Luk 3:23. Here as it were the whole scene of the New Testament is thrown open. [The year 27 of the common era, verging towards autumn, was then in course of progress. Three years before the beginning of that era, Christ was born, and Herod died.-V. g.] Not even the nativity of Christ, or His death, resurrection, and ascension, have their dates so precisely and definitively marked as this: ch. Luk 2:1. Moreover the mode of marking the date is not taken from the Roman consuls, but from the emperors. Scripture is wont accurately to define the epochs of great events: this, in the case of the New Testament, is done in the present passage alone; and even for this reason alone, this book of Luke is a necessary part of the Scriptures of the New Testament. See Ord. Temp., p. 219, etc. [Ed. ii. p. 191, etc.]-, Csar) The Church has its existence [manifests itself externally] in the state [the commonwealth]: on this account, the epoch receives its denomination from the empire. [The first year of Tiberius, as Luke counts it, begins with the month Tisri of that Jewish year, in which Augustus died. It was in the same year as John that Jesus BEGAN, i.e. made a beginning of His public proceedings.-Not. Crit.]-, and) Itura and the region of Trachonitis, beyond Jordan, form two tetrarchies.-, Abilene) beyond the region of Trachonitis towards the north.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Luk 3:1-20

SECTION TWO

THE PREPARATION; BEGINNING

OF CHRIST’S PUBLIC MINISTRY

Luke 3:1 to 4:13

1. THE MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

Luk 3:1-20

1, 2 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign-Luke is a true historian; he defines very accurately the time when John began his ministry. It was the fifteenth year of the reign “of Tiberius Caesar.” Luke does not refer to some one great epoch like the birth of Christ, which is followed throughout the civilized world, for then no such epoch for the world had been established. He dates from the year of the reigning Roman emperor, and adds also the name of the governor of Judea, and then the tetrarchs of the adjacent provinces, and the high priests then in office. Tiberius Caesar succeeded Augustus in A.D. 14, according to very reliable historians; his fifteenth year (and John’s entrance upon his ministry) were in A.D. 29. As Jesus was six months younger than John, and about thirty years of age (verse 23) when he began his ministry, it follows that John began to preach not far from one and a half years before the baptism of Jesus.

Pontius Pilate became governor of Judea in A.D. 25 or 26. The name “tetrarch” was originally given to one who ruled a fourth part of a province; that is, one province having been divided into four parts. Pontius Pilate was a bold, heartless ruler; his first act was an outrage on the feelings of the Jews; he sent within the city of Jerusalem a body of soldiers to winter there. The Jews obtained their removal after many efforts to get them out of the holy city. Luke very aptly fixes this date as the time for the beginning of John’s ministry.

Herod was tetrarch of Galilee at this time. This was Herod Antipas, son of the monster, Herod the Great; he had been left by his father as ruler of the province of Galilee. “Tetrarch” originally meant the fourth part, but came to be used to signify the part of a kingdom over which the man ruled. John the Baptist was slain by this Herod and our Savior was mocked by him; his brother Philip also received a third part of the kingdom of Herod. “Philip” was “tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis”; “Ituraea” was a district in the northeast of Palestine and east of the Jordan; it received its name from Jetru, one of the sons of Ishmael. (Gen 25:15; 1Ch 5:19.) It had been subdued by Aristobulus, who compelled the people to submit to the rites of the Jews. “Trachonitis” was the region bordering upon Ituraea and east of the Jordan. The name signifies a rough mountainous country. Philip had received it on a promise to drive out the people who had dwelt there some time. “Lysanias” was “tetrarch of Abilene”; nothing is known of him; “Abilene” was named from “Ablia,” which was the principal city in the region lying northwest of Damascus.

in the highpriesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,-According to the Jewish law there could be but one high priest at a time. Luke, as a historian, is not stating what should have been, but only what constituted the facts in the matter. He is taking up important names as he found them in order to fix the date of his history. He found these two men serving as high priest at that time. Caiphas was son-in-law to Annas, who was actually serving as high priest. Annas was a man of very great influence. He had been deposed as high priest, but was serving on the Sanhedrin. As Annas had been unjustly deposed by the Roman authorities, it may be that, in the opinion of the Jews, he was still termed the high priest, and a degree of power put into his hands that made him equal in authority to Caiaphas. Luke fixes the date of the beginning of the ministry of John by an emperor on one side, by a petty governor on the other, by two high priests who were serving at the time. At this date so clearly and fully defined the historian, Luke, now proceeds to narrate facts as he has collected them. It is to be remembered always that he is guided by the Holy Spirit in writing his history. “The word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.” Luke has now fixed definitely the time for the beginning of John’s work. Like the prophets of old, John was specially directed to utter the divine message to the people and to baptize. (Jer 1:2 Eze 6:1.) This marked the beginning of John’s ministry as is evident from the whole account, not some later appearance of John which was the cause of his imprisonment, as some have supposed. “In the wilderness” of Judea describes the barren, hilly, and sparsely-settled region between Hebron and the Dead Sea. The word “wilderness” or “desert” in the New Testament denotes merely an untilled, unenclosed, and thinly-inhabited country. The “fulness of the time” (Gal 4:4) has now arrived.

3-6 And he came into all the region-The populous Jordan valley was a field of labor for John the Baptist. The burden of his message was a call upon men to repent and be baptized as the condition of their forgiveness; hence John came “preaching the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins.” “Preaching” means publicly announcing; as he traveled over the country, he delivered his brief message to individuals, families, and small companies wherever he found them, and then afterward to great crowds who flocked to hear him.

“Baptism” is the Greek “baptisma” transferred into our language with its final letter dropped; it means literally “a plunging and immersion.” All lexicographers bear testimony and agree to this; its figurative meaning is based on this meaning, and always expresses an idea of immersion. (Luk 12:50.) It is only with the literal meaning that we have here to do. The baptism of John was a new rite; it was not founded on the immersions of the old dispensation, under which persons performed the ceremony of bathing or immersing the whole body, not on others, but on themselves. (Lev 15:6; Lev 16:4.) The immersion of one person by another, as a divinely appointed act, is peculiar to Christianity, and was first introduced by John baptism was not practiced among the Jews nor heathens. John himself declared that he received his commission to baptize directly from God. (Joh 1:33.) Jesus intimated that the right was revealed to John from heaven. (Luk 20:4.) As baptism was a new rite it distinguished John’s ministry from all other prophets; hence he is called “the Baptist.” (Luk 7:20.) John’s preaching is very specifically designated as that of “baptism of repentance unto remission of sins.”

as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah-The preaching and baptism of John were the fulfillment of certain prophetic conditions; Luke recognizes the authority of the Old Testament. “The book of the words of Isaiah” means the roll or scroll of linen, papyrus, or parchment, the ancient form of a volume, written inside and unrolled for reading. “The words” of Isaiah means his prophetic discourses. Isaiah began to prophesy under the reign of Uzziah, about 759 B.C., and continued the prophetic office about sixty years under Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. (Isa 1:1.) The predictions here quoted are found in Isa 40:3-5; Isa 52:10. John also applies it to himself. (Joh 1:23.) The figure here used is founded on the eastern custom of sending persons to prepare the way for the march of a king through the country. John is described as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” and his message is to “make ye ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” It is not John, but his preaching and mission which are made prominent here; his preaching was indeed a “voice of one crying” aloud, of short duration, but by its great earnestness excited attention.

Every valley shall be filled,-The great oral purpose of John’s preaching was so well defined in the prophecy of him by Isaiah that Luke quotes the prophecy in full; everywhere in earnest tones, John called upon the people to prepare the way for the Greek King, leveling down the mountains, filling up the valley gorges, straightening all crooked ways, and making the rough places smooth. This is the way the royal road was prepared for the coming king. In a moral sense men must put away their sins, humble their proud spirits, and so make the way ready for the redeemer of man. All this as it stood before Isaiah’s mind was to introduce the glorious reign of the Messiah by means of which “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” So remarkable and conspicuous would be the preparation and march of the King upon the straight and smooth highway that the whole human race should “see the salvation of God,” which the Messiah would bring.

7-9 He said therefore to the multitudes-Luke now begins to record what John said to the multitudes “that went out to be baptized of him.” John was a prophet, guided by the Holy Spirit, and the forerunner of the Messiah; it was his mission to get the people ready for the Messiah. The multitudes came from various quarters of the land. Mat 3:7 says that “many of the Pharisees and Sadducees” came to his baptism, and that John addressed them as “ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” As Luke was writing for Gentiles, there was no need of his referring to these religious classes among the Jews; hence he addressed them as “ye offspring of vipers.” It may be that some had come through curiosity, others were envious and jealous, and some, especially of the Sadducees, were sneering at the dangers impending in a future life; all seemed to be aroused and anxious. As John was filled with the Holy Spirit he could see at a glance their selfish and wicked motives in coming to him, and he at once addressed them as “offspring of vipers,” persons both deceitful and malignant, and holding pernicious doctrines and principles. The viper was a very poisonous serpent. (Act 28:3-6.)

who warned you to flee-“Warned” literally means “to show secretly”;the word implies a private or confidential hint or reminder. (Luk 12:5; Act 9:16; Act 20:35.) “Who” did not call for the names of the man or persons, but rather called their thought to the point that someone ought to have warned them to flee from the impending wrath of God. John had no word for men not in earnest to escape God’s wrath. It was a Jewish maxim that no circumcised person could ever be lost, but John warns them of a “wrath to come.” The impending wrath was to be visited upon those who rejected the kingdom of heaven and neglected preparation. The Jews expected troublous times in connection with the coming of the Messiah. (Isa 60:12; Isa 63:1; Mal 3:1; Mal 4:5.) John here referred in a prophetic way to the wrath which would come upon the Jewish nation at the destruction of Jerusalem and upon all the wicked at the general judgment. (Mat 24:21; Mat 24:38-39; 1Th 1:10.)

Bring forth therefore fruits-Matthew here uses “fruit” instead of “fruits” as used by Luke. John demanded no merely emotional and selfish fear, but such works and conduct as would show sincerity; they were to bring fruits “worthy of repentance”; if they came professing repentance then they should bring forth fruits in harmony with such a profession; they should not even think that they had Abraham as their father or they should not think that because they were descendants of Abraham they did not need repentance. The reason assigned is that “God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.”

And even now the axe also lieth at the root-“The axe laid at the root of the tree” is a proverb that was common among the Jews. The meaning is that the axe is ready to be applied for use, and not only were the branches to be pruned, but the axe was to be applied to the root of the tree. The object of the axe was to cut down “every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit.” Men are to be judged, not by their birth or their professions, but by their hearts and lives. Without delay all barren trees were to be cut down immediately and “cast into the fire.” This was unquenchable fire. (Verse 17; Heb 6:8.) In this way John would prepare the people for the coming of Christ by awakening within them a sense of their true condition and of their spiritual need. Expecting a temporal deliverer, they would, without this, most certainly reject Jesus.

10-15 And the multitudes asked him,-John certainly aroused the people and stirred them to action some of them received John’s teaching and became his disciples; others were aroused to opposition. They asked: “What then must we do?” They saw that being the seed of Abraham was not sufficient and that their keeping the traditions of the law not satisfactory; hence their question, “what then must we do?” They “asked” indicates the frequent repetition of their question, so the original indicates. John’s preaching moved them to press their inquiry; what are the fruits meet for repentance which they were to do, is what disturbed them. John’s answer to these questions was as emphatic as was his preaching.

And he answered and said-John’s first answer impressed the duties of practical life-give to those who are more destitute. “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none.” A second coat no man could want if his neighbor who had none wanted his first; two coats were sometimes worn, one of them for ornamentation or luxury; in such case the one who had two coats could very well spare one to those who had none. This explains what John meant when he said “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance.” It also partially answers their question as to what they should do. Avarice and selfishness characterized at this time many of the Jews. (Jas 4:1-4; Jas 5:1-6.) Furthermore, “he that hath food, let him do likewise.” The “coat” and “food” represent the physical necessities of man; these should not be hoarded, but generously given to those who had need.

And there came also publicans to be baptized,-“Publicans” were collectors of Roman taxes; the Roman officials often farmed out the direct taxes and customs to capitalists on their payment of certain sums into the public treasury, hence they were called “publicans.” Sometimes this sum, being greater than any one person could pay, was paid by a company; under these were “submagistri,” living in the provinces; and under these again were the “portitores” or actual customhouse officers, who are referred to in the New Testament. They were often chosen from the low and wicked class of people and were so notorious for their extortions that they were habitually included in the same class with harlots and sinners.

And he said unto them, Extort no more-“Extort” means “exact”; the word is used of the exaction of legal tribute, and excessive exaction is expressed by the following words: John would hardly have commanded them to extort in any case. John does not demand that they give up their employment, but that they should be honest in the performance of their duties. If these publicans truly repented, they would indeed exhibit other fruits, but this in their case was absolutely necessary;without it there could be no true repentance.

And soldiers also asked him,-The soldiers asked the same question that the multitudes and publicans asked; hence here are three classes who have asked what they should do to “bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance.” The “soldiers” were probably Jewish troops; for if they had been Gentiles, John would doubtless have enjoined upon them the worship of God: such worship is here taken for granted. However, we cannot know just who they were; they could have been Jewish soldiers of the Roman province of Judea; it matters not who they were; they came under the class of bearing fruit worthy of repentance. John’s answer was adapted to their sins and temptations; they were prone to indolence, violence, malice, and insubordination. Hence, John told them that they should “extort from no man by violence, neither accuse any one wrongfully; and be content with your wages.” “Extort” “by violence” literally means “to shake violently,” and “to vex and harass” in order to extort money for some selfish end. Neither were they to accuse “wrongfully” anyone in order to receive a bribe or a reward. They are further admonished to be “content” with their wages. “Wages” literally means something purchased to eat with bread; hired soldiers were at first paid partly in rations of meat, grain, and fruit; hence the word came to mean rations, “wages,” or stipend.

15-17 And as the people were in expectation,-The people were anxious for John to declare himself, hence “all men reasoned in their hearts concerning John”; they were anxious to determine whether he was “the Christ.” Such preaching as John did was so out of the ordinary that the people wondered as to whether he was the Messiah. John was filled with the Holy Spirit; hence his teachings were far different from those of the scribes and Pharisees. The people were anxious to know who this wonderful prophet and teacher was. When the time came John answered them and said: “I indeed baptize you with water;but there cometh he that is mightier than I.” To baptize “with water” and only “with water” described John’s work, but there would come another who was so much greater than John, as great as they thought John was, that John was not “worthy to unloose” “the latchet” of his shoes. The language used by John implies that this “Mighty One” was already in the midst of them. Jesus was mightier than John in his nature, office, wisdom, power, and aims. (Mat 28:18 Joh 5:27; Joh 10:30; Joh 10:41.) Yet none greater than John had arisen. (Mat 11:9-11.) “The latchet” of the shoe was a strap which fastened the sandal to the feet. The “shoes” as used here means sandals which covered only the bottom of the feet. They were taken off and laid aside on entering a house; the tying and untying the sandals was the work of the most menial servant. Yet Christ was so mighty a personage that even this work John felt himself unworthy to perform. Since John had aroused the whole Jewish nation, how great then must be the Messiah! Christ would arouse the world, his power would be felt by everyone.

he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire:-Luke gives the same form of expression that Matthew did. (Mat 3:11.) The baptism “in the Holy Spirit and in fire” must not be referred to water baptism in any sense, for Christ never baptized in water, but left that to his disciples. (Joh 4:2.) Neither does this baptism refer to the common influences of the Holy Spirit which are peculiar to the work of the Spirit. (Joh 20:22.) It must refer to the sending of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, which was peculiarly the work of Christ. (John 16 :; Act 1:5; Act 11:16.) Many think that “in fire” has reference to the baptism of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, because “there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire and it sat upon each one of them.” (Act 2:3.) But this was not a baptism “in fire,” for these “tongues” were not “fire,” but only “like as of fire”; and these tongues only sat upon the apostles, but did not immerse them in the tongues “like as of fire.” There seems to be two baptisms mentioned here that Christ would administer; one was the baptism “in the Holy Spirit,” which was literally fulfilled on the day of Pentecost (Act 2:1-4) and at the house of Cornelius (Act 10:44; Act 11:15-18). The baptism in the Spirit of these two groups of persons has brought blessings to all mankind; the one on Pentecost brought blessings directly to the Jews, and the one at the house of Cornelius brought blessings to the Gentiles; hence the baptism in the Holy Spirit has resulted in blessings to the entire human family.

whose fan is in his hand,-The figure used here was taken from the custom of threshing grain in the East by treading it out with oxen (Deu 25:4), or a threshing machine was drawn over the grain (Isa 41:15; Amo 1:3). The grain and chaff were mingled; in this condition both were thrown up against the wind with a shovel; the chaff was ‘thus blown away, while the grain fell in a heap; in this way the wheat and the chaff were separated; the chaff was burned and the wheat was gathered into the garner. The figure as used by John represents the Messiah as separating the evil from the good, according to the tests of his kingdom and his gospel;the worthy are to be received into his kingdom and given a rich reward, while the unworthy are to be destroyed. There is a sharp contrast not only between the wheat and the chaff, but the destiny of the two classes. The fire that burns the wicked is “unquenchable,” which means never extinguished the doom it describes is eternal.

18-20 With many other exhortations-Luke here gives a synopsis of John’s preaching by saying “with many other exhortations” he preached “good tidings unto the people.” John rebuked sin, called upon the people to repent, and to manifest it by a thorough change of heart and life proclaimed the Messiah approaching with blessings and salvation to the righteous, the believing, and judgments and destruction to the wicked, the unbelieving. In this way John prepared the way for Christ; some hearts were ready to receive him when he came. (Joh 1:37; Joh 1:41; Joh 1:43.) The warnings and admonitions of John extended to every class of people; he made no distinction in his condemnation of sin. Luke here gives a brief account of John’s ministry, and, by way of anticipation, refers to the imprisonment of John, which occurred several months after the baptism of Jesus. (Mat 14:3; Mar 6:17.)

but Herod the tetrarch, being reproved-Herod had taken “Herodias his brother’s wife”; Herodias was the wife of Philip;she was the granddaughter of Herod the Great, the daughter of Aristobulus, and niece of Herod Antipas. She married Philip, a son of Herod the Great, who lived in private life, having been disinherited by his father. Herodias, preferring royalty, left Philip and married Herod Antipas, who, to make way for her, divorced his own wife, daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia, supposed to be the one mentioned by Paul in 2Co 11:32. Notwithstanding that Herodias had left her husband and married Antipas, she was “his brother’s wife.” (Mar 6:17-20.) John not only reproved Herod for this one crime, but “for all the evil things which Herod had done.” He condemned his revelings, his debaucheries, and his murders. According to Jewish testimony, Herod Antipas was very wicked and slew many of the wise men of Israel. In addition to all these evils, he “added this also to them all, that he shut up John in prison.” It is generally understood that John was imprisoned in the fortress of Machaerus, on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. John was imprisoned about a year after the baptism of Jesus. He remained in prison until he was beheaded; we do not know the exact time.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Luke marks with great care the time of the ministry of John, employing an emperor, a governor, three tetrarchs, and two high priests to do it. By means of these names a picture of the world at the time is given to us: the empire under Tiberius Caesar, the commonwealth of Israel divided and governed by four of Rome’s vassals, the priesthood degraded by a dual leadership contrary to all the law of God. It was then that the Word of God came to John, the most important event of the time.

With the coming of the Word to him, John became a public figure. Men crowded to listen to him. It was a stern preaching of repentance, and formed the prelude to the music of Messiah’s message. Then came the Messiah Himself. At His baptism He received a twofold seal: the direct declaration of the pleasure of God, and the anointing of the Spirit.

At this point Luke speaks of Jesus’ age, about thirty, and gives His actual genealogy, tracing it back through Mary and David to Adam.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

3:1-9:50. THE MINISTRY

3:1-22. The External Preparation for the Ministry of the Christ: the Ministry of John the Baptist, Mat 3:1-12; Mar 1:1-8; Joh 1:15-28

Hic quasi scena N. T. panditur is Bengels illuminative remark. It was the glory of John the Baptist to have revived the function of the prophet (Ecce Homo, p. 2); and it is difficult for us to realize what that meant. A nation, which from Samuel to Malachi had scarcely ever been without a living oracle of God, had for three or four centuries never heard the voice of a Prophet. It seemed as if Jehovah had withdrawn from His people. The breaking of this oppressive silence by the voice of the Baptist caused a thrill through the whole Jewish population throughout the world. Lk. shows his appreciation of the magnitude of the crisis by the sixfold attempt to give it an exact date. Of the four Evangelists he is the only one to whom the title of historian in the full sense of the term can be given; and of Christian writers he is the first who tries to fit the Gospel history into the history of the world. It is with a similar wish to do justice to a crisis that Thucydides gives a sixfold date of the entry of the Thebans into Plata, by which the thirty years truce was manifestly broken and the Peloponnesian War begun (ii. 2; comp. v. 20).

The section is carefully arranged. First the Date (1, 2); then a Description of the new Prophet (3-6); then an account of his Preaching and its Effects (7-17); and an Explanation as to how it came to an End (18-20). He baptizes the Christ (21, 22).

1, 2. The Date. The event that is thus elaborately dated is the appearance of the new Prophet, not the beginning of Christs ministry. See below on the conclusion of ver. 2. Ellicott considers it the date of the captivity of the Baptist. This had been advocated by Wieseler in his Synopsis (ii. ch. ii. Eng. tr. p. 178), but he abandoned it in his Beitrge. Others would make it refer to Christs baptism, which may have followed closely upon Johns first appearance as a preacher (Caspari, Chron. Einl. 33, Eng, tr. p. 41). But the interval between the beginning of Johns ministry and his baptizing Jesus cannot be determined Some estimate it at one month, others at six months, because John was six months older than Jesus (Lewin, Fasti Sacri, 1171). Weiss (Leben Jesu, I. ii. 8, Eng. tr. 1. p. 316) shows that the interval was not more than six months. The appearance of one who seemed to be a Prophet soon attracted immense attention; and when large numbers accepted his doctrine and baptism, it became imperative that the hierarchy should make inquiry as to his authority and claims. But it appears from Joh 1:19-28 that the first investigation made by the Sanhedrin was about the time when the Baptist met Jesus. In neither case can year or time of year be determined. If Jesus was born towards the end, John about the middle, of 749 (b.c. 5), then John might begin to preach about the middle of 779, and Jesus be baptized early in 780 (a.d. 27).

It is little or no confirmation of this result that both the Greek and the Roman Churches celebrate the Baptism of Christ on Jan. 6th. Originally, the Nativity, the Visit of the Magi, and the Baptism were all celebrated on Jan. 6th. When Dec. 25th was adopted as the date of the Nativity, the Roman Church continued to celebrate the Baptism with the Epiphany to the Gentiles on Jan. 6th, while the Greek Church transferred the latter along with the Nativity to Dec. 25th, commemorating the Baptism alone on Jan. 6th. The fact that both the Eastern and the Western Church have concurred in celebrating the Baptism on Jan. 6th seems at first sight to be imposing testimony. But there is little doubt that all trustworthy evidence had perished before any of these dates were selected.1

Instead of the elaborate dates given in these first two verses, Mt. (3:1) has simply , while Mk. (1:4) has nothing. Comp. the somewhat similar dating of the erection of Solomons temple (1Ki 6:1). Beng. says of this date, Epocha eccltsi omnium maxima. Hic quasi scena N.T. panditur. Ne nativitatis quidem, aut mortis, resurrectionis, ascensionis christi tempus tam prcise definitur.

1. . He naturally begins with the Roman Empire, and then takes the local governors, civil and ecclesiastical. Now in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Csar, or of Tiberius as Csar. Is the 15th year to be counted from the death of Augustus, Aug. 19th, a.u.c. 767, a.d. 14? or from the time when he was associated with Augustus as joint ruler at the end of 764 or beginning of 765, a.d. 11 or 12? It is impossible to determine this with certainty. Good authorities (Zumpt, Wieseler, Weiss) plead for the latter reckoning, which makes the Gospel chronology as a whole run more smoothly; but it is intrinsically less probable, and seems to be inconsistent with the statements of Tacitus and Suetonius. See Hastings, D.B. i. p. 405.

The main points are these. 1. Tiberius was not joint Emperor with Augustus; he was associated with him only in respect of the provinces and armies: ut provincias cum Augusto communiter administraret, simulque censum ageret (Suet. Tib. 21.); ut quum ei jus in omnibus provinciis exercitibusque esset (Vell. Paterc. 2:121); filius, collega imperii, consors tribunici protestatis adsumitur, omnisque per exercitus ostentatur (Tac. Ann. 1:3, 3; comp. i. 11. 2 and iii. 56, 2). 2. It is clear from Tacitus (Ann. 1:5-7) that, when Augustus died, Tiberius was not regarded by himself or by others as already Emperor. Suetonius confirms this by saying that Tiberius, while manifestly getting the imperial power into his hands, for a time refused the offer of it (Tib. 24.). 3. No Instance is known of reckoning the reign of Tiberius from his association with Augustus. The coins of Antioch, Lk.s own city, which helped to convert Wieseler from the one view to the other by seeming to date the reign of Tiberius from the association, are not admitted by Eckhel to be genuine. On the other hand, there are coins of Antioch which date the reign of Tiberius from the death of Augustus. It remains, therefore, that, although to reckon from the association was a possible method, especially in the provinces, for there Tiberius had been really a consort of Augustus, yet it is more probable that Lk. reckons in the usual way from the death of the predecessor (see Wieseler, Chron. Synop. 2Ch_2.; Keim, Jesus of Naz. ii. pp 381, 382; Lewin, Fasti Sacri, 1044; Sanday, Fourth Gospel, p. 65). Fifteen years from the death of Augustus would be a.d. 29, at which time our Lord would probably be 32 years of age, which sufficiently agrees with Lk.s about 30 (ver. 23).If the earlier date is admissible, the agreement becomes exact.

. Quite a vague term, and applicable to the rule of emperor, king, legatus, or procurator, as is shown by Jos. Ant. 18:4, 2, and by the use of in N.T.: 20:20, 21:12; Act 23:24, Act 23:26, Act 23:33, etc. Wieseler is alone in seeing in this word (instead of ). and in (instead of ), evidence that the co-regency of Tiberius is meant (Beitrge z. richtigen Wrdigung d. Evan. 1869, pp. 191-194). From the Emperor Lk. passes to the local governor under him.

. The more exact of D and other authorities is an obvious correction to mark his office with precision: =procurator. Pilate succeeded Valerius Gratus a.d. 25, and was recalled a.d. 36 or 37 by Tiberius, who died, March a.d. 37, before Pilate reached Rome. Having mentioned the Roman officials, Lk. next gives the local national rulers.

. The word occurs nowhere else in N.T., but is used by Josephus of Philip, tetrarch of Trachonitis (B. J. iii. 10, 7). The title tetrarch was at first used literally of the governor of a fourth; e.g. of one of the four provinces of Thessaly (Eur. Alc. 1154), or one of the fourths into which each of the three divisions of Galatia were divided (Strabo, 430, 540, 560, 567). But after-wards it came to mean the governor of any division, as a third or a half, or of any small country; any ruler not a (How Sat. 1:3, 12). Such seems to be the meaning here; but it may be used in its literal sense, Pilates province representing the fourth tetrarchy, viz. the dominions of Archelaus.

In d we have the singular rendering: in anno quintodecimo ducatus Tibert Csaris procurants Pontio Pilato Jud, quaterducatus Galil Herode.

. Antipas, son of Herod the Great and Malthace the Samaritan. See small print on 1:5 for the iota subscript. Two inscriptions have been found, one at Cos and one at Delos, which almost certainly refer to him as tetrarch, and son of Herod the king (Schrer, Jewish People in the T. of J. C. I. vol. 2. p. 17). His coins have the title tetrarch, and, like those of his father, bear no image. Herod Philip was the first to have any portrait on the coins of a Jewish prince. He had the images of Augustus and Tiberius put upon his coins. As his dominions were wholly heathen, this would cause little scandal. He even went so far as to put the temple of Augustus at Panias on his coins. Herod Antipas was made tetrarch of Pera and Galilee, b.c. 4 (Jos. Ant. 17:11, 4; B. J. 2:6, 3). As he ruled this district until a.d. 39 or 40, the whole of Christs life falls within his reign, and nearly the whole of Christs ministry took place within his dominions. For his character see on 13:32. He was by courtesy allowed the title of (Mar 6:14); and as Agrippa had obtained this by right, Antipas and Herodias went to Rome, a.d. 39, to try and get the courtesy title made a real one by Caligula. The attempt led to his banishment, the details of which are uncertain, for Josephus makes inconsistent statements. Either he was banished at Bai, a.d. 39, to Lugdunum (Ant. 18:7, 2), or he had a second audience with Caligula at Lugdunum, a.d. 40, and was banished to Spain (B. J. 2:9, 6). The latter is probably correct (Lewin, Fasti Sacri, 1561). But see Farrar, Herods, p. 178.

. Herod Philip, son of Herod the Great and Cleopatra. He reigned for nearly 37 years, b.c. 4 to a.d. 33, when he died at Julias, which he had built and named in honour of the infamous Julia, d. of Augustus and wife of Tiberius. He was the builder of Csarea Philippi (B. J. 2:9, 1), and was the best of the Herods (Ant. 18:4, 6). He married his niece Salome soon after she had danced for the head of the Baptist, c. a.d. 31 (Ant. 18:5, 4). Trachonitis = derived its name from the rugged character of the country. It lay N.E. of Galilee in the direction of Damascus, and its inhabitants were skilled archers and very often banditti (Ant. xv. 10. 1). The expression . . , the region of Itura and Trachonitis, seems to indicate that more than these two is included; probably Auranitis and Batana. , both here and perhaps everywhere, is an adjective. Farrar, p. 164.

. Not merely Strauss, Gfrrer, B. Bauer, and Hilgenfeld, but even Keim and Holtzmann, attribute to Lk. the gross chronological blunder of supposing that Lysanias, son of Ptolemy, who ruled this region previous to b.c. 36, when he was killed by M. Antony, is still reigning 60 years after his death. Such a mistake is very improbable; and the only difficulty about Lk.s statement is that we have no indisputable evidence of this tetrarch Lysanias. D.C.G. art. Lysanias.

But 1. Lysanias, son of Ptolemy, was styled king and not tetrarch, and the seat of his kingdom was Chalcis in Cle-Syria, not Abila in Abilene. 2. It is pure assumption that no one of his name ever ruled in these parts afterwards. 3. Josephus (Ant. xix. 5, 1) speaks of Abila of Lysanias, and (xx. 7, 1) of a tetrarchy of Lysanias (comp. B. J. ii. 11, 5, 12. 8); and as the son of Ptolemy was not called tetrarch, nor was connected with Abila, and, moreover, reigned for only 5 or 6 years, it is improbable that Abila of Lysanias was called after him. Therefore these passages in Josephus confirm rather than oppose Luk_4. A medal found by Pococke designates Lysanias tetrarch and high priest. If this refers to either, it is more likely to refer to Lk.s Lysanias. 5. Two inscriptions exist, one of which proves that Lysanias, the son of Ptolemy, left children; the other, that at the time when Tiberius was associated with Augustus there was a tetrarch Lysanias (Boeckh, Corp. inscr. Gr. 4523, 4521). See Davidson, Intr. to N. T. 1. pp. 214-221, 1st ed.; Rawlinson, Bampton Lectures for 1859, P. 203; Wieseler in Herzog,2 1. PP. 87-89; and the reff. in Thayers Grimm under .

2. . Lk. now passes to the ecclesiastical rulers. The singular is probably not accidental, and certainly not ironical. Under the high priest Annas-Caiaphas, which means that between them they discharged the duties; or that each of them in different senses was regarded high priest, Annas de jure (Act 4:6) and Caiaphas de facto (Joh 11:49).

Annas had held office a.d. 7-14, when he had been deposed by Valerius Gratus, the predecessor of Pilate, who set up in succession Ismael, Eleazar (son of Annas), Simon, and Joseph surnamed Caiaphas, who held office a.d. 18-36, when he was deposed by Vitellius. Four more sons of Annas succeeded Caiaphas, the last of whom (another Annas) put to death James the brother of the Lord and the first bishop of Jerusalem. It is manifest that Annas retained very great influence, and sometimes acted as high priest. Annas the high priest was there, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest (Act 4:6). Perhaps, so far as it was safe to do so, he was encouraged to ignore the Roman appointments and to continue in office during the high priesthoods of his successors. This would be especially easy when his own son-in-law or son happened to be the Roman nominee.1 There were no less than twenty-eight high priests from the time of Herod the Great to the capture of Jerusalem by Titus (Jos. Ant. 20:10).

. It is clear from this that what Lk. is anxious to date with precision is not any event in the life of the Messiah, but the appearance of the new Prophet, who was to be the Messiahs herald, and who was by some mistaken for the Messiah. Johns preaching and baptizing is an epoch with Lk. (Act 1:22, Act 10:37, Act 13:24). As distinct from , which means the Gospel message as a whole (see on 8:11), means some particular utterance (Mat 4:4; Comp. Luk 22:61). The phrase (not ) is freq. in LXX (Gen 15:1; 1Sa 15:10; 2Sa 7:4; 1Ki 17:2, 1Ki 17:8, 1Ki 17:18:1, 1Ki 17:20:28, etc.); also (2Sa 24:11; 1Ki 6:11, 1Ki 12:22, 1Ki 13:20, 1Ki 14:1, etc.). It is the O.T. formula. to express Divine inspiration. In such cases the phrase is almost always followed by : but in 1Ch 22:8 (?) and Jer 1:1 we have . Jer 1:1 is a close parallel to this : . The phrase occurs nowhere else in N.T.

. Lk. alone describes the Baptist thus. No other N.T. writer mentions Zacharias.- . The one mentioned as his abode (1:80). Both AV. and RV. rather obscure this by using deserts in 1:80 and wilderness here. Mt. calls it the wilderness of Juda (3:1). It is the Jeshimon of 1Sa 23:19. See D. B.2 art. Arabah, and Stanley, Sin. & Pal. p. 310.

3-6. Description of the New Prophet. Lk. omits the statements about his dress and food (Mat 3:4; Mar 1:6), and also the going out of the people of Jerusalem and Juda to him (Mat 3:5; Mar 1:5). The famous account of the Baptist in Jos. Ant. 18:5, 2 should be compared. It may have been altered by Christian scribes, but its divergence from the Gospel narrative as to the motive for imprisoning and killing John, is in favour of its originality.1 See Hastings, D.B. i. p. 240.

3. . The same as the plain of Jordan, which is thus rendered in LXX Gen 13:10, Gen 13:11; by ., 2Ch 4:17; and by ., 1Ki 7:46. The expression covers a considerable portion of the Jordan valley at least as far north as Succoth (2Ch 4:17). The Baptist, therefore, moved north from the limestone desert on the W. shore of the Dead Sea, and perhaps went almost the whole length of the valley to the confines of the Sea of Galilee. For Bethany (Beth-Anijah =House of Shipping) beyond Jordan must have been near Galilee (Joh 1:28), and is supposed by Conder to be the same as Bashan (Handbook of the Bible, pp. 315, 320). See, however, D. B.2 art. Bethabara. John was sometimes on one bank and sometimes on the other, for we read of his working in Pera (Joh 10:40). His selection of the valley of the Jordan as his sphere of work was partly determined by the need of water for immersion. Stanley, Sin. & Pal. p. 312.

. Verbatim as Mar 1:4. Nowhere in N.T. has its primary meaning of act as a herald; but either proclaim openly (8:39, 12:3; Mar 1:45, etc.) or preach the Gospel (Mat 11:1; Mar 3:14; Rom 10:14, Rom 10:15, etc.). To preach baptism is to preach the necessity or value of baptism; and repentance baptism ( ) is baptism connected with repentance as being an external symbol of the inward change (Act 13:24, Act 19:4). The repentance precedes the baptism, which seals it and reminds the baptized of his new obligations. To submit to this baptism was to confess that one was a sinner, and to pledge oneself to a new life. The change of mind1 () has reference both to past deeds and to future purposes, and is the result of a realization of their true moral significance (Wsctt. on Heb 6:1, Heb 6:6, Heb 6:12:17). This inward change is specially insisted upon in the account of Johns preaching in Jos. Ant. 18:5, 2. The word is rare in Mt. (3:8, 11) and Mk. (1:4), and does not occur in Jn. It is freq. in Lk. (ver. 8, 5:32, 15:7, 24:47; Act 5:31, Act 11:18, etc.). We find it in Jos. Ant. 13:11, 3 of Aristobulus after the murder of his brother; to Plut. Pericles, X., of the Athenians after the banishment of Cimon; and in Thuc. iii. 36, 3 of the Athenians after the sentence on Mitylene. See American Ch. Rev. No. 134, pp. 143 ff. Johns repentance baptism was . This was its purpose, assuring the penitent of forgiveness, and of deliverance from the burden, penalty, and bondage of sin (Trench, Syn. xxxiii.; Crem. Lex. p. 297: comp. Luk 1:77; Act 2:38; Heb 10:18).

4. . With the exception of Php 4:3, is peculiar to Lk. (20:42; Act 1:20, Act 7:42). The form is usual where the meaning is a writing or document, where the plant or papyrus as writing material is intended (Hdt. 2:96, 3, 5:58. 3). For in the sense of the utterances of a teacher or prophet comp. Act 20:35; Amo 1:1.

. From Mat 3:3 and Mar 1:3 we see that, in the tradition of which all three make use, these words were quoted as applying to the Baptist. This is therefore a primitive interpretation; and we learn from Joh 1:23 that it originated with the Baptist himself. John was a making known the . The whole man was a sermon. The message was more than the messenger, and hence the messenger is regarded as mainly a voice. Jn. has for (1:23), and this looks as if he were translating direct from the Hebrew, which has one word and not two. The quotation in the other three is identical, and (with the substitution of for [] verbatim as LXX. Lk. quotes Isa 40:4, Isa 40:5 as well as 40:3, and here slightly varies from LXX, having for , and , for .1

. It is possible to take these words with rather than with : but here, as in Mt. and Mk., the latter arrangement is more natural-vox clamantis in deserto. Barnabas (9:3) connects them with . It is evident from the scenery which is mentioned that it is in a desert that the road for the coming King has to be made. The details symbolize the moral obstacles which have to be removed by the repentance baptism of John, in order to prepare the people for the reception of the Messiah, or (as some prefer) of Jehovah (Isa 35:8-10). That Lk. means the Messiah is shown by the substitution of for : and that this interpretation is in accordance with the primitive tradition is shown by the fact that all three Gospels have this substitution. Just as Oriental monarchs, when making a royal progress, send a courier before them to exhort the population to prepare roads, so the Messiah sends His herald to exhort His own people (Joh 1:11) to prepare their hearts for His coming.

5. . A valley shut in by precipices, a ravine; here only in N.T., but found in LXX (Judith 2:8) and in class. Grk. (Thuc. 2:67, 4). It is perhaps from the same root as =plough and foro=bore.

. Herodotus seems to imply that this is a Cyrenaic word (4:199, 2): but it is freq. in later writers and in LXX. Comp. 23:30, and for the sense Zec 4:7; Isa 40:4.

, … The crooked places shall become straight ways, and the rough ways smooth ways: i.e. roads shall be made where there were none before, and bad roads shall be made good roads. Comp. the account of Vespasians march into Galilee, especially the work of the pioneers (Jos. B. J. iii. 6, 2).

6. . Everywhere in N.T. this expression seems to refer to the human race only; so even Mat 24:22; Mar 13:20; 1Pe 1:24; comp. Act 2:17; Rom 3:20. Fallen man, man in his frailty and need of help, is meant. In LXX it often includes the brutes: Gen 6:19, Gen 6:7:15, Gen 6:16, Gen 6:21, Gen 6:8:17, Gen 6:9:11, Gen 6:15, Gen 6:16, Gen 6:17; Psa 136:25; Jer 32:27, Jer 45:5. The phrase is one of many which occur frequently in Is. 40-45., but not at all in the earlier chapters (Driver, Isaiah, p. 197).

. It was obviously for the sake of this declaration that Lk. continued the quotation thus far. That the salvation of God is to be made known to the whole human race is the main theme of his Gospel.

7-17. Johns Preaching and its Effects. This section gives us the burden of his preaching (, imperf.) in accordance () with the character which has just been indicated. The herald who has to see that hearts are prepared for the Messiah must be stern with hypocrites and with hardened sinners, because the impenitent cannot escape punishment (7-9); must supply different treatment for different classes (10-14; comp. ver. 5); and must declare the certainty of his Masters coming and of its consequences (15-17).

7. . He used to say, therefore: being the predicted Forerunner, his utterances were of this character. We need not regard this as a report of what was said on any one occasion, but as a summary of what he was in the habit of saying during his ministry to the multitudes who came out of the towns and villages () into the wilderness to hear the Prophet and gain something from him. Mt. (3:7) represents this severe rebuke as addressed to the Pharisees and Sadducees; which confirms the view that Lk. is here giving us the substance of the preaching rather than what John said on some particular day. What he said to some was also said to all; and as the salvation offered was universal, so also was the sin. This is thoroughly characteristic of Lk.

. As a substitute for repentance, or as some magical rite, which would confer a benefit on them independently of their moral condition. Their desire for his baptism showed their belief in him as a Prophet; otherwise the baptism would have been valueless (Joh 1:25; comp. Zec 13:1 ; Eze 36:25). Hence the indignation of Johns disciples when they heard of Jesus baptizing, a rite which they regarded as their masters prerogative (Joh 3:26). The title or shows that his baptism was regarded as something exceptional and not an ordinary purification (Jos. Ant. xviii. 5, 2). Its exceptional character consisted in (1) its application to the whole nation, which had become polluted; (2) its being a preparation for the more perfect baptism of the Messiah. It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its full significance is seen.

is intensive from , like from : , I dip; , I immerse. is offspring of animals or men (Ecclus. 10:18); fruits of the earth or of plants (Deu 28:4, Deu 28:11, Deu 28:18, Deu 28:42, Mat 26:29; Mar 14:25; Luk 22:18); rewards of righteousness (Hos 10:12; 2Co 9:10).

. Genimina (Vulg.) or generatio (b ff2 l q r) or progenies (a c d e f) viperarum. In Mt. this is addressed to the Pharisees, first by John and afterwards by Jesus (3:7, 12:34, 23:33). It indicates another parentage than that of Abraham (Joh 8:44), and is perhaps purposely used in opposition to their trust in their descent: comp. Aesch. Cho. 249; Soph. Ant. 531. Johns metaphors, like those of the prophecy (ver. 5), are from the wilderness;-vipers, stones, and barren trees. It is from this stern, but fresh and undesecrated region, and not from the Holy, but polluted City, that the regenerating movement proceeds (Isa 41:18). These serpent-like characters are the that must be made straight. Comp. Psa 58:4, Psa 140:3.

. Suggested by showing to eye or ear: 6:47, 12:5; Act 9:16, Act 9:20:35; elsewhere in N.T. only Mat 3:7.

. It is possible that this refers primarily to the national judgments involved in the destruction of Jerusalem and the banishment of the Jews (21:23; 1 Mac. 1:64); but the penalties to be inflicted at the last day are probably included (Rom 1:18, Rom 1:2:5, Rom 1:8, Rom 1:3:5, Rom 1:5:9). The Jews believed that the judgments of God, especially in connexion with the coming of the Messiah, as threatened by the Prophets (Joe 2:31; Mal 3:2, Mal 3:4:1; Isa 13:9), were to be executed on the heathen. The Baptist proclaims that there is no such distinction. Salvation is for all who prepare their hearts to receive the Messiah; judgment, for all who harden their hearts and reject Him. Birth is of no avail.

8. . . If you desire to escape this wrath and to welcome the Messiah (), repent, and act at once (aor. imperat.) as those who repent. Comp. 20:24; Act 3:4, Act 3:7:33, Act 3:9:11, Act 3:16:9, Act 3:21:39, Act 3:22:13; and see Win. xliii. 3. a, p. 393. Mt. has (3:8), which treats the series of acts as a collective result. Comp. S. Pauls summary of his own preaching, esp. (Act 26:20).

It was a Rabbinical saying, If Israel would repent only one day, the Son of David would come forthwith; and again, If Israel would observe only one sabbath according to the ordinance, forthwith would the Son of David come; and, All the stages are passed, and all depends solely on repentance and good works.

The phrase is not necessarily a Hebraism (Gen 1:11, Gen 1:12): it occurs [Arist.] De Plant. i. 4, p. 819, ii. 10, p. 829. Comp. Jam 3:12: Mar 4:32.

. Do not even begin to have this thought in your minds. Omnem excusationis etiam conatum prcidit (Beng.). If there are any passages in which with an infin. is a mere periphrasis for the simple verb (20:9), this is not one of them. See Win. lxv. 7. d, p. 767; Grim-Thay. p. 79; Fritzsche on Mat 16:21, p. 539.- . To say within yourselves rather than among yourselves. Comp. 7:49 and (Psa 4:5). For the perennial boast about their descent from Abraham comp. Joh 8:33, Joh 8:53; Jam 2:21; Jam_2 Esdr. 6:56-58; Jos. Ant. iii. 5, 3; B. J. v. 9, 4; Wetst. on Mat 3:9.

. There is a play upon words between children (banim) and stones (abanim). It was God who made Abraham to be the rock whence the Jews were hewn (Isa 51:1, Isa 51:2); and out of the most unpromising material He can make genuine children of Abraham (Rom 4:9:6, Rom 4:7, 11:Rom 4:13-24; Gal 4:21-31). The verb is applicable to both stones and children.

9. Although you do not at all expect it. The image of the axe is in harmony with that of the fruits (ver. 8). In the East trees are valued mainly for their fruit; and trees which produce none are usually cut down. And even now also the axe is laid unto the root.

The after may be explained either, is brought to the root and lies there; or, lies directed towards the root. In either case the meaning is that judgment is not only inevitable, but will come speedily: hence the presents, and .

The (in Mt. simply ) is Lk.s favourite method of giving emphasis; ver. 12, 2:4, 4:41, 5:10, 36, 9:61, 10:32, 11:18, 12:54, 57, 14:12, 16:1, 22, 18:9, 19:19, 20:12. For with a participle, expressing a reason or condition, comp. 2:45, 7:30, 11:24, 12:47, 24:23; Act 9:26, Act 9:17:6, Act 9:21:34, Act 9:27:7; and see Win. Lev_5 (), p. 607. For , to cut off, of felling trees, comp. 13:7, 9; Hdt. ix. 97, 1. See notes on 6:43.

10-14. Johns Different Treatment of Different Classes. Peculiar to Lk., but probably from the same source as the preceding verses. It shows that, in levelling the mountains and raising the valleys, etc. (ver. 5), he did not insist upon any extraordinary penances or counsels of perfection. Each class is to forsake its besetting sin, and all are to do their duty to their neighbour. The stern warnings of the Baptist made the rulers leave in disgust without seeking baptism at his hands (7:30; Mat 21:25); but they made the multitude anxious to comply with the conditions for avoiding the threatened judgment.

10. . Continually put this question. The notion of repetition comes from the imperf. and not, as in (16:3, 18:35), from the , which in indicates the direction of the inquiry; Plato, Soph. 249 E, 250. Comp. in 4:17.

; What then, if the severe things which thou sayest are true, must we do? For the conjunctivus deliberativus Comp. 23:31; Mat 26:54, Mar 12:14; Joh 12:27; and see Win. xli. 4. b, p. 356; Matth. 515. 2; Arnolds Madvig, p. 99; Green, p. 150.

11. . The was the under and less necessary garment, distinguished from the upper and almost indispensable ; 6:29; Act 9:39; Mat 5:40; Joh 19:23. When two of these were worn at once, the under one or shirt would be the Hebrew cetoneth, the upper would be the Hebrew meil, which was longer than the cetoneth. It was common for travellers to wear two (Jos. Ant. xvii. 5, 7); but Christ forbade the disciples to do so (9:3; Mat 10:10). It is not implied here that the two are being worn simultaneously. See Trench, Syn. l.; Conder, Handb. of B. p. 195; D. B.2 art. Dress; Schaffs Herzog, art. Clothing and Ornaments of the Hebrews. If the owner of two shirts is to give a share (), he will give one shirt. Comp. Rom 1:11, Rom 1:12:8; and contrast Peters reply to the same question Act 2:37, Act 2:38. With regard to , nothing is said or implied about having superfluity or abundance. He who has any food is to share it with the starving. Comp. 1Th 2:18.

This verse is one of those cited to support the view that Lk. is Ebionite in his sympathies, a view maintained uncompromisingly by Renan (Les vangiles, ch. xiii.; V. de J. chs. x., xi.), and by Campbell (Critical Studies in St. Luke, p. 193). For the answer see Bishop Alexander (Leading Ideas of the Gospel, p. 170). Here it is to be noticed that it is Mt. and Mk. who record, while Lk. omits, the poor clothing and poor food of the Baptist himself; and that it is Mt. who represents his sternest words as being addressed to the wealthy Pharisees and Sadducees, while Lk. directs them against the multitudes generally.

12. . From (Mat 17:25; Rom 13:7) and ; so that etymologically = publicani, those who bought or farmed the taxes under the Roman government. But in usage = portitores, those who collected the taxes for the publicani. This usage is common elsewhere, and invariable in N.T. Sometimes, and perhaps often, there was an intermediate agent between the and the publicani, e.g. or magister (19:2).

These tax-collectors were detested everywhere, because of their oppressiveness and fraud, and were classed with the vilest of mankind: , (Lucian. Necyomant. xi.; comp. Aristoph. Equit. 248; Theophr. Charac. vi.; Grotius, in loco; Wetst. on Mt. v. 46). The Jews especially abhorred them as bloodsuckers for a heathen conqueror. For a Jew to enter such a service was the most utter degradation. He was excommunicated, and his whole was regarded as disgraced. But the Romans allowed the Herods to retain some powers of taxation; and therefore not all tax-collectors in Palestine were in the service of Rome. Yet the characteristic faults of the profession prevailed, whether the money was collected in the name of Csar or of Herod; and what these were is indicated by the Baptists answer. See Lightfoot, Opera, i. pp. 324, 325; Herzog, Pro_2 art. Zoll; Edersh. L. & T. 1. p. 515.

13. . Publicani majore ceteris reverentia utuntur (Beng.). Syr-Sin. omits the word.

. For after comparatives comp. Heb 1:4, Heb 1:3:3, Heb 1:9:23, Heb 1:11:4, Heb 1:12:24; Hdt. 7:103. 6; Thuc. i . 23, 4, iv. 6, 1. The effect is to intensify the notion of excess: so also , 16:8; Heb 4:12.

. That which stands prescribed (perf.), a favourite word with Lk.: 8:55; 17:9, 10; Act 7:44, Act 18:2, Act 20:13, Act 23:31, Act 24:23. Comp. disponere, verordnen. It is from the general meaning of transacting business that acquires the special sense of exacting tribute, extorting money: comp. 19:23. This use is found from Herodotus onwards: Hdt. iii. 58. 4; sch. Cho. 311; Pers. 476; Eum. 624; Xen. Anab. vii. 6. 17: comp. , , , and many illustrations in Wetst. Agere is similarly used: publicum quadragesim in Asia egit (Suet. Vesp. i.); but what follows is of interest as showing how rare an honourable publicanus was: manebantque imagines in civitatibus ei posit sub hoc titulo . This is said of Sabinus, father of Vespasian. After farming the quadragesima tax in Asia he was a money-lender among the Helvetii. It is to be noticed that the Baptist does not condemn the calling of a tax-collector as unlawful for a Jew. He assumes that these will continue to act as such.

14. . Men on service, on military duty; militantes rather than milites (Vulg.). In 2Ti 2:4, is rightly rendered nemo militans. Who these men on service were cannot be determined; but they were Jewish soldiers and not Roman, and not on service in the war between Antipas and his father-in-law Aretas about the formers repudiation of the latters daughter in order to make room for Herodias. That war took place after the Baptists death (Jos. Ant. xviii. 5, 2), two or three years later than this, and probably a.d. 32 (Lewin, Fasti Sacri, 1171, 1412). These were possibly gendarmerie, soldiers acting as police, perhaps in support of the tax-collectors. Such persons, as some modern nations know to their cost, have great opportunities for bullying and delation. By their they seem to connect themselves with the , either as knowing that they also were unpopular, or as expecting a similar answer from John.

. Like concutio, is used of intimidation, especially of intimidating to extort money (3 Mac. 7:21). Eusebius uses it of the extortions of Paul of Samosata (H. E. vii. 30. 7); where, however, the true reading may be . In this sense also is used (Aristoph. Equit. 840; Pax, 639); and it is interesting to see that Antipho couples with . (Orat. vi. p. 146, l. 22).1 This last passage, combined with the verse before us, renders it probable that , a fig-shower, is not one who gives information to the police about the exportation of figs, but one who shows figs by shaking the tree; i.e. who makes the rich yield money by intimidating them. Nowhere is found in the sense of informer, nor yet of sycophant. It always denotes a false accuser, especially with a view to obtaining money; Arist. Ach. 559, 825, 828. Hatch quotes from Brunet de Presle, Notices et textes du Muse du Louvre, a letter of b.c. 145 from Dioscorides, a chief officer of finance, to his subordinate Dorion: , …, in the matter of fictitious legal proceedings and plunderings, some persons being, moreover, alleged to be even made the victims of false accusations, etc. (Bibl. Grk. p. 91). Comp. Lev 19:11; Job 35:9. Hesychius explains as .

. From , cooked food to be eaten with bread, and , I buy: hence rations, allowance, pay of a soldier; 1Co 9:7; 1Co_1 Mac. 3:28, Mal 3:14:32; Mal_1 Esdr. 4:56; and freq. in Polybius. John does not tell these men on service that theirs is an unlawful calling. Nor did the early Christians condemn the life of a soldier: see quotations in Grotius and J. B Mozley, University Sermons, Serm. v.

15-17. The certainty of the Messiahs Coming and the Consequences of the Coming. Mat 3:11, Mat 3:12. The explanatory opening (ver. 15) is peculiar to Lk. The substance of ver. 16 is common to all three; but here Lk. inserts the characteristic . In ver. 17 he and Mt. are together, while Mk. is silent. Lk. shows more clearly than the other two how intense was the excitement which the Baptists preaching caused.

15. . What were they expecting? The result of all this strange preaching, and especially the Messianic judgment. Would it be put in execution by John himself? For this absolute use of comp. Act 27:33. Excepting Mat 11:3, Mat 11:24:50, 2Pe 3:12-14, the verb is peculiar to Lk. (1:21, 7:19, 20, 8:40, 12:46; Act 3:5, etc.). Syr-Sin. omits.

The Vulg. here has the strange rendering existimante; although in 1:21, 7:19, 20, 8:40 is rendered expecto, and in 12:46 spero.. Cod. Brix. has sperante here. See on 19:43 and 21:23, 25 for other slips in Jeromes work. Here d has an attempt to reproduce the gen. abs. in Latin: et cogitantium omnium. Comp. 9:43, 19:11, 21:5, 24:36, 41.

. If haply he himself were the Christ. Their thinking this possible, although John did no sign, and had none of the insignia of royalty, not even descent from David, is remarkable. Non ita crassam adhuc ideam de Christo habebant, nam Johannes nil splendoris externi habebat et tamen talia de eo cogitabant (Beng.). That this question had been raised is shown by Joh 1:20. The Baptist would not have declared I am not the Christ, unless he had been asked whether he was the Messiah, or had heard the people discussing the point.

For the constr. comp. (2Ti 2:25). The opt. in indirect questions is freq. in Lk. both without (1:29, 8:9, Act 17:11, Act 21:33) and also with (1:62, 6:11, 15:26; Act 5:24, Act 10:17).

16. . Showing how universal the excitement on this point was. Neither Mt. (3:11) nor Mk. (1:7) has the of which Luke is so fond: comp. 6:30, 7:35, 9:43, 11:4, 12:10.

The aor. mid. is rare in N.T. (23:9; Act 3:12; Mat 27:12; Mar 14:61; Joh 5:17, Joh 5:19); also in LXX (Jdg 5:29; 1Ki 2:1; 1Ch 10:13; Eze 9:11). In bibl. Grk. the pass. forms prevail: see small print on 1:19.

. Both with emphasis: I with water.

. Valebat Johannes, sed Christus multo plus (Beng.). The art. marks him as one who ought to be well known.

. More graphic than Mt.s . , but less so than Mk.s . . Both AV. and RV. mark the difference between , that which is bound under the foot, and , dim. of , by rendering the former shoe (10:4, 15:22, 22:35; Act 7:33, Act 13:25) and the other sandal (Mar 6:9; Act 12:8). The Vulg. has calceamenta for , and sandalia or calig for . In LXX the two words seem to be used indiscriminately (Jos 9:5, Jos 9:13); but . is much the more common, and it is doubtful whether the Jews before the Captivity wore shoes or manalim (Deu 33:25) as distinct from sandals. Comp. (Isa 5:27). To unfasten shoes or sandals, when a man returned home, or to bring them to him when he went out, was the office of a slave (See Wetst. on Mat 3:11). John is not worthy to be the bond-servant of the Christ. The is not so entirely redundant as in some other passages: whose latchet of his shoes.1

. In emphatic contrast to the speaker.

. See on 1:15. That the with and its absence from marks a distinction of any great moment, either here or Act 1:5, must be doubted; for in Mat 3:11 both expressions have the , and in Mar 1:8 neither. The simple dat. marks the instrument or matter with which the baptism is effected; the marks the element in which it takes place (Joh 1:31). See Hastings, D.B. i. p. 244.

. This remarkable addition is wanting in Mk. Various explanations of it are suggested. (1) That the fiery tongues at Pentecost are meant, is improbable. Were any of those who received the Spirit at Pentecost among the Baptists hearers on this occasion? Moreover, in Act 1:5 is not added. (2) That it distinguishes two baptisms, the penitent with the Spirit, and the impenitent with penal fire, is very improbable. The same persons () are to be baptized with the Spirit and with fire. In ver. 17 the good and the bad are separated, but not here. This sentence must not be made parallel to what follows, for the winnowing-shovel is not baptism. (3) More probably the refers to the illuminating, kindling, and purifying power of the grace given by the Messiahs baptism. Spiritus sanctus, quo Christus baptizat, igneam vim habet: atque ea vis ignea etiam conspicua fuit oculis hominum (Beng.): comp. Mal 3:2. (4) Or, the fiery trials which await the disciple who accepts Christs baptism may be meant: comp. 12:50; Mar 10:38, Mar 10:39. The passage is one of many, the exact meaning of which must remain doubtful; but the purifying of the believer rather than the punishment of the unbeliever seems to be intended.

17. . The winnowing-shovel (pala lignea; Vulg. ventilabrum), with which the threshed corn was thrown up into the wind ( = spit).1 This is a further description of the Messiah,-He whose is ready for use. Note the impressive repetition of after , , and .2

. The threshing-floor itself, and not its contents. It is by removing the contents-corn to the barn, and refuse to the fire-that the floor is thoroughly cleansed. Christs threshing-floor is the world; or, in a more restricted sense, the Holy Land. See Mever on Mat 3:12.

. Comp. Mar 9:43; Lev 6:12, Lev 6:13; Isa 34:8-10, 66:24; Jer 7:20; Eze 20:47, Eze 20:48. In Homer it is a freq. epithet of , , , , and once of (Il. xvi. 123). As an epithet of it is opposed to and . See Heinichen on Eus. H. E. vi. 41, 15 and viii. 12, 1. It is therefore a fierce fire which cannot be extinguished, rather than an endless fire that will never go out, that seems to be indicated: and this is just such a fire as (the refuse left after threshing and winnowing) would make. But is sometimes used of a fire that never goes out, as that of Apollo at Delphi or of Vesta at Rome (Dion. Hal. cxciv. 8). For comp. Mat 13:30, Mat 13:40; also Exo 3:2, where it is distinguished from : it implies utter consumption.

18-20. Explanation of the Abrupt Termination of the Baptists Ministry. This is given here by anticipation in order to complete the narrative. Comp. the conclusions to previous narratives: 1:66, 80, 2:40, 52.

18. . The comprehensive confirms the view taken above (ver. 7) that this narrative (7-18) gives a summary of Johns teaching rather than a report of what was said on any one occasion. The means of a different kind (Gal 1:6, Gal 1:7), and intimates that the preaching of the Baptist was not always of the character just indicated.

The cases in which occurs must be distinguished. 1. Where, as here, is followed by a corresponding , and we have nothing more than the distributive combined with (Act 8:4, Act 8:25, Act 8:11:19, Act 8:12:5, Act 8:14:3, Act 8:15:3, Act 8:30, etc.). 2. Where no follows, and confirms what is said, while marks an inference or transition, quidem igitur (Act 1:6, Act 1:2:41, Act 1:5:41, Act 1:13:4, Act 1:17:30; Heb 7:11, Heb 8:4, etc.). Win. liii. 8. a, p. 556.

. These words give the three chief functions of the Baptist: to exhort all, to preach good tidings to the penitent, to reprove the impenitent. It is quite unnecessary to take with , and the order of the words is against such a combination.

In late Greek the acc. of the person to whom the announcement is made is freq. after (Act 14:15, Act 14:16:10; Gal 1:9; 1Pe 1:12; comp. Act 8:25, Act 8:40, Act 8:14:21): and hence in the pass. we have . The acc. of the message announced is also common (8:1; Act 5:42, Act 5:8:4, Act 5:12?, 10:36, 11:20). Where both person and message are combined, the person addressed is in the dat. (1:19, 2:10, 4:43; Act 8:35; comp. Luk 4:18; Act 17:18; Rom 1:15, etc.): but in Act 13:32 we have double acc. Here the Lat. texts vary between evangelizabat populum (Cod. Am.) and evang. populo (Cod. Brix.).

19. . Antipas, as in ver. 1. The insertion of the name after comes from Mk. and Mt. (A C K X and some versions). This Philip must be carefully distinguished from the tetrarch Philip, with whom Jerome confuses him. He was the son of Mariamne, on account of whose treachery he had been disinherited by Herod the Great; and he lived as a private individual at Jerusalem (Jos. B. J. i. 30, 7). Josephus calls both Antipas and also this Philip simply Herod (Ant. xviii. 5, 4). Herodias became the evil genius of the man who seduced her from his brother. It was her ambition which brought about the downfall of Antipas. Lk. alone tells us that John rebuked Antipas for his wicked life ( ) as well as for his incestuous marriage. Obviously means rebuked, reproved (1Ti 5:20; 2Ti 4:2), and not convicted or convinced (Joh 8:46, Joh 16:8). In the former sense is stronger than : see Trench, Syn. iv.

Once more (see on ver. 1) we have a remarkable rendering in d: Herodes autem quaterducatus cum argueretur ad eo, etc.

Note the characteristic and idiomatic attraction ( ), and comp. 2:20, 5:9, 9:43, 12:46, 15:16, 19:37, 24:25; Act 3:21, Act 10:39, Act 13:39, Act 22:10, Act 26:2.

20. , , … He added this also on the top of all-he shut up John in prison; i.e. he added this to all the other of which he had been guilty. Farrar, Herods, p. 171.

Josephus, in the famous passage which confirms and supplements the Gospel narrative respecting the Baptist (Ant. xviii. 5, 2), says that Antipas put him in prison because of his immense influence with the people. They seemed to be ready to do whatever he told them; and he might tell them to revolt. This may easily have been an additional reason for imprisoning him: it is no contradiction of the Evangelists. What Josephus states is what Antipas publicly alleged as his reason for arresting John: of course he would not give his private reasons. The prison in which the Baptist was confined was in the fortress of Machrus at the N.E. corner of the Dead Sea. Seetzen discovered the site in 1807 above the valley of the Zerka, and dungeons can still be traced among the ruins. Tristram visited it in 1872 (Discoveries on the East Side of the Dead Sea, ch. xiv.). It was hither that the daughter of Aretas fled on her way back to her father, when she discovered that Antipas meant to discard her for Herodias. Machrus was then in her fathers dominions; but Antipas probably seized it immediately afterwards (Jos. Ant. xviii. 5, 1, 2).

The expression , must not be confounded with the Hebraisms (10:11, 12), (Act 12:3). It is true that in LXX the act. as well as the mid. is used in this manner: (Gen 4:2); (Gen 18:29): see also Exo 10:28; Deu 3:26; and for the mid. Exo 14:13. But in this Hebraistic use of for go on and do the second verb is always in the infin. (Win. liv. 5, p. 588). Here there is no Hebraism, and therefore no sign that Lk. is using an Aramaic source.

is classical, but occurs in N.T. only here and Act 26:10; in both cases of imprisoning. It is freq. in medical writers, and Galen uses it of imprisonment (Hobert, Med. Lang. of Lk. pp 66, 67). Mat 14:3 we have , and Mar 6:17, , of Herods putting John into prison.

21, 22. Jesus is baptized by John.-It is remarkable, that although the careers of the Forerunner and of the Messiah are so closely connected, and so similar as regards prediction of birth, retirement, ministry, and early end, yet, so far as we know, they come into actual contact only at one brief period, when the Forerunner baptized the Christ. Once some of Johns disciples raised the question of fasting, and Jesus answered it (5:33; Mat 9:14), and once John sent some of his disciples to Jesus to question Him as to His Messiahship (7:19-23; Mat 11:2-19); but there is no meeting between Christ and the Baptist. Lk., having completed his brief account of the Forerunner and his work, begins his main subject, viz. the Messiah and His work. This involves a return to the point at which the Forerunner met the Messiah, and performed on Him the rite which prepared Him for His work, by publicly uniting Him with the people whom He came to save, and proclaiming Him before them.

21. . After all the people had been baptized; cum bapitizatus esset omnis populus (Cod. Brix.): not, while they were being baptized; cum baptizaretur (Cod. Am.). The latter would be with the pres. infin.

Both constructions are very freq. in Lk. Contrast the aorists in 2:27, 9:36, 11:37, 14:1, 19:15, 24:30, Act 11:15 with the presents in 5:1, 12, 8:5, 42, 9:18, 29, 33, 51, 10:35, 38, 11:1, 27, 17:11, 14, 24:4, 15, 51; Act 8:6, Act 19:1. Lk. is also fond of the stronger form which is rare in N.T. outside his writings. Readings are often confused, but is well attested 5:26, 8:37, 9:15, 19:37, 48, 23:1; Act 2:44, Act 2:4:31, Act 2:5:16, Act 2:10:8, Act 2:11:10, Act 2:16:3, Act 2:28, Act 2:25:24; and may be right in other places.

That there were great multitudes present when John baptized the Christ is not stated; nor is it probable. Had Lk. written , this would have implied the presence of many other candidates for baptism; but it was not until after every one of the people had been baptized that the baptism of Jesus took place. Possibly Jesus waited until He could be alone with John. In any case, those who had long been waiting for their turn would go home soon after they had accomplished their purpose. It was some time after this that John said to the people, He that cometh after me is standing in the midst of you, and ye know Him not (Joh 1:26). They could hardly have been so ignorant of Him, if large multitudes had been present when John baptized Him.

. It is remarkable that this, which seems to us to be the main fact, should be expressed thus incidentally by a participle. It is as if the baptism of all the people were regarded as carrying with it the baptism of Jesus almost as a necessary complement After they had been baptized, and when He had been baptized and was praying. But perhaps the purpose of Lk. is to narrate the baptism, not so much for its own sake as an instance of Christs conformity to what was required of the people, as for the sake of the Divine recognition and authentication which Jesus then received.

Jerome has preserved this fragment of the Gospel acc. to the Hebrews: Lo, the mother of the Lord and His brethren said to Him, John the Baptist baptizeth for remission of sins: let us go and be baptized by him. But He said to them, Wherein have I sinned that I should go and be baptized by him? except perchance this very thing which I have said is ignorance (Adv. Pelag. 3:1). The Tractatus de Rebaptismate says that the Pauli Prdicatio represented Christ, the only man who was altogether without fault, both making confession respecting His own sin, and driven almost against His will by His mother Mary to accept the baptism of John: also that when He was baptized fire was seen on the water, which is no written in any Gospel (17. ; Hartels Cyprian, 2. p. 90). The fire in the water is mentioned in Justin (Try. 88.), but not as recorded by the Apostles; and also in the Gospel acc. to the Hebrews.

. Lk. alone mentions this. On his Gospel as emphasizing the duty of prayer see Introd. 6. Mt. and Mk. say that Jesus saw the Spirit descending; Jn. says that the Baptist saw it; Lk. that it took place () along with the opening of the heaven and the coming of the voice. Mk. says simply ; Mt has ; Lk. . See On 1:15.

The constr. of with acc. and infin. is on the analogy of the class. constr. of : it is freq. in Lk. See note, p. 45. The form is anomalous, as if assimilated to : comp. Joh 9:10, Joh 9:14; Rev 4:1, Rev 6:1.

22. . In a bodily form is peculiar to Lk. Nothing is gained by admitting something visible and rejecting the dove. Comp. the symbolical visions of Jehovah granted to Moses and other Prophets. We dare not assert that the Spirit cannot reveal Himself to human sight, or that in so doing He cannot employ the form of a dove or of tongues of fire. The tongues were appropriate when the Spirit was given by measure to many. The dove was appropriate when the Spirit was given in His fulness to one. It is not true that the dove was an ancient Jewish symbol for the Spirit. In Jewish symbolism the dove is Israel. The descent of the Spirit was not, as some Gnostics taught, the moment of the Incarnation: it made no change in the nature of Christ. But it may have illuminated Him so as to complete His growing consciousness of His relations to God and to man (2:52). It served two purposes: (1) to make Him known to the Baptist, who thenceforward had Divine authority for making Him known to the world (Joh 1:32, Joh 1:33); and (2) to mark the official beginning of the ministry, like the anointing of a king. As at the Transfiguration, Christ is miraculously glorified before setting out to suffer, a voice from heaven bears witness to Him, and the goodly fellowship of the Prophets waits on His glory.

The phrase is freq. in Lk. (1:44, 9:35, 36; Act 2:6, Act 7:31, Act 10:13, Act 19:34). Elsewhere only Mar 1:2, Mar 1:9:7; Joh 12:30; Rev 8:5, Comp. , Joh 12:28; , Rev 16:17, Rev 19:5.

. Responsio ad preces, ver. 21 (Beng.). The shows that the voice conveyed a message to the Christ as well as to the Baptist. Mk. also has : Mat 3:17 we have . Diversitas locutionum adhuc etiam utilis est, me uno modo dictum minus intelligatur (Aug.). In the narrative of the Transfiguration all three have .

The reference seems to be to Psa 2:7; and here D and other important witnesses have , . Augustine says that this was the reading of some MSS., although it is stated not to be found in the more ancient MSS. (De Cons. Evang. 2:14: comp. Enchir. ad Laurent. 49.). Justin has it in his accounts of the Baptism (Try. 88., 103.). In Mt. it is possible to take with what follows: The beloved in whom I am well pleased; but this is impossible here and in Mar 1:11, and therefore improbable in Mt. The repetition of the article presents the epithet as a separate fact: Thou art My Son, My beloved one. Comp. (Hom. Oba 1:2:365). It is remarkable that St. John never uses of Christ: neither in the Fourth Gospel nor in the Apocalypse does the word occur in any connexion.

I am well pleased: the timeless aorist. Comp. Joh 13:3. The verb is an exception to the rule that, except where a verb is compounded with a prep., the verbal termination is not retained, but one from a noun of the same root is substituted: e.g. , , not , . Comp. and , which are similar exceptions, Win. 16:5, p. 125.

The voice does not proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, as a legend would probably have represented. No such proclamation was needed either by Jesus or by the Baptist. The descent of the Spirit had told John that Jesus was the christ (Joh 1:33). This voice from heaven, as afterwards at the Transfiguration (9:35), and again shortly before the Passion (Joh 12:28), followed closely upon Christs prayer, and may be regarded as the answer to it. His humanity was capable of needing the strength which the heavenly assurance gave. To call this voice from heaven the Bath-Kol, of the Rabbis, or to treat it as analogous to it, is misleading. The Rabbinic Bath-Kol, or Daughter-voice, is regarded as an echo of the voice of God: and the Jews liked to believe that it had been granted to them after the gift of prophecy had ceased. The utterances attributed to it are in some vases so frivolous or profane, that the more intelligent Raobis denounced it as a superstition.

It has been pointed out that Lk. appears to treat the baptism of Jesus by John as a matter of course. Mt. tells us that the Baptist at first protested against it; and many writers have felt that it requires explanation. Setting aside the profane suggestions that Jesus was not sinless, and therefore needed repentance baptism for remission of sins, or that He was in collusion with John, we may note four leading hypotheses. 1. He wished to do honour to Joh_2. He desired to elicit from John a declaration of His Messiahship. 3. He thereby gave a solemn sign that He had done with home life, and was beginning His public ministry. 4. He thereby consecrated Himself for His work.-This last seems to be nearest to the truth. The other three would be more probable if we were expressly told that multitudes of spectators were present; whereas the reverse seems to be implied. Johns baptism was preparatory to the kingdom of the Messiah. For everyone else it was a baptism of repentance. The Messiah, who needed no repentance, could yet accept the preparation. In each case it marked the beginning of a new life. It consecrated the people for the reception of salvation. It consecrated the Christ for the bestowing of it (Neander, L. J. C. 42 (5), Eng. tr. p. 68). But besides this it was a fulfilment of righteousness, a complying with the requirements of the Law. Although pure Himself, through His connexion with an unclean people He was Levitically unclean. On the principles of O.T. righteousness His baptism was required (Lange L. of C. i. p. 355).

In the Fathers and liturgies we find the thought that by being baptized Himself Jesus elevated an external rite into a sacrament, and consecrated the element of water for perpetual use. Baptizatus est ergo Dominus non mundari volens, sed mundare aquas (Ambr. on Luk 2:21, Luk 2:23). By the Baptisme of thy wel beloved sonne Jesus Christe, thou dydest sanctifie the fludde Jordan, and al other waters to this misticall washing away of synne (First Prayer-Book of Edw. 6:1549, Public Baptism); which follows the Gregorian address, By the Baptism of Thine Only-begotten Son halt been pleased to sanctify the streams of water (Bright, Ancient Collects, p. 161).

There is no contradiction between Johns Comest Thou to me? (Mat 3:14) and I knew Him not (Joh 1:31, Joh 1:33). As a Prophet John recognized the sinlessness of Jesus, just as Elisha recognized the avarice and untruthfulness of Gehazi, or the treachery and cruelty of Hazael (2Ki 5:26, 2Ki 8:10-12); but until the Spirit descended upon Him, he did not know that He was the Messiah (Weiss, Leben Jesu, I. ii. 9, Eng. tr. i. p. 320). John had three main functions: to predict the coming of the Messiah; to prepare the people for it; and to point out the Messiah when He came. When these were accomplished, his work was nearly complete.

23-38. The Genealogy of Jesus Christ. Comp. Mat 1:1-17. The literature is very abundant: the following are among the principal authorities, from which a selection may be made, and the names of other authorities obtained.

Lord A. Harvey, The Genealogies of our Lord and Saviour, Macmillan, 1853; J. B. McClellan, The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour, 1. PP. 408-422, Macmillan, 1875; W. H. Mill, Observations on the Application of Pantheisdc Principles to the Theory and Historic Criticism of the Gospel, pp. 147-218; D.B.2 art. Genealogy; D. of Chr. Biog. art. Africanus; Schaffs Herzog, art. Genealogy; Commentaries of Mansel (Speaker), Meyer, Schaff, on Mat_1.; of Farrar, Godet, M. R. Riddle, on Luk_3.

Why does Lk. insert the genealogy here instead of at the beginning of his Gospel? It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that this is the beginning of his Gospel, for the first three chapters are only introductory. The use of here implies that the Evangelist is now making a fresh start. Two of the three introductory chapters are the history of the Forerunner, which Lk. completes in the third chapter before beginning his account of the work of the Messiah. Not until Jesus has been anointed by the Spirit does the history of the Messiah, i.e. the Anointed One, begin; and His genealogy then becomes of importance. In a similar way the pedigree of Moses is placed, not just before or just after the account of his birth (Exo 2:1, Exo 2:2), where not even the names of his parents are given, but just after his public appearance before Pharaoh as the spokesman of Jehovah and the leader of Israel (Exo 6:14-27).

The statement of Julius Africanus, that Herod the Great caused the genealogies of ancient Jewish families to be destroyed, in order to conceal the defects of his own pedigree (Eus. H. E. i. 7. 13), is of no moment. If he ever gave such an order, it would of necessity be very imperfectly executed. The rebuilding of the temple would give him the opportunity of burning the genealogies of the priests, which were preserved in the temple archives, but pedigrees in the possession of private families would be carefully concealed. Josephus was able to give his own genealogy, as he found it described in the public records- (Vita, 1); and he tells us what great care was taken to preserve the pedigrees of the priests, not merely in Juda, but in Egypt, and Babylon, and whithersoever our priests are scattered (Apion. 1:7). It is therefore an empty objection to say that Lk. could not have obtained this genealogy from any authentic source, for all such sources had been destroyed by Herod. It is clear from Josephus that, if Herod made the attempt, he did not succeed in destroying even all public records. Jews are very tenacious of their genealogies; and a decree to destroy such things would be evaded in every possible way. The importance of the evidence of Africanus lies in his claim to have obtained information from members of the family, who gloried in preserving the memory of their noble extraction; and in his referring both pedigrees as a matter of course to Joseph. It is not probable that Joseph was the only surviving descendant of David who was known to be such. But it is likely enough that all such persons were in humble positions, like Joseph himself, and thus escaped the notice and jealousy of Herod. Throughout his reign he took no precaution against Davidic claimants; and had he been told that a village carpenter was the representative of Davids house, he would possibly have treated him as Domitian is said to have treated the grandsons of Judas the brother of the Lord-with supercilious indifference (Eus. H. E. iii. 20).

23. . He Himself, to whom these miraculous signs had reference: comp. 1:22; Mat 3:4. The AV. translation of the whole clause, , Jesus Himself began to be about thirty years of age, is impossible. It is probably due to the influence of Beza: incipiebat esse quasi annorum triginta. But Cranmer led the way in this error in the Bible of 1539, and the later versions followed. Purvey is vague, like the Vulgate: was bigynnynge as of thritti year,-erat incipiens quasi annorum triginta. Tyndale is right: was about thirty yere of age when He beganne; i.e. when He began His ministry in the solemn way just recorded. Comp. the use of in Act 1:22. In both cases may be understood, but is not necessary. In Mar 4:1 we have the full expression, , which is represented in the parallel, Mat 13:1, by . Professor Marshall has shown that and may be equivalents for one and the same Aramaic verb (Expositor, April 1891): see on 5:21.

It is obvious that this verse renders little help to chronology. About thirty may be anything from twenty-eight to thirty-two,-to give no wider margin. It is certain that our era is at least four years too late, for it begins with a.u.c. 754. Herod the Great died just before the Passover a.u.c. 750, which is therefore the latest year possible for the Nativity. If we reckon the fifteenth year of ver. 1 from the death of Augustus, Jesus was probably thirty-two at the time of His Baptism.

, . This is the right punctuation: being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph the son of Heli. It is altogether unnatural to place the comma after and not before it: being the son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Heli; i.e. being supposed to be the son of Joseph, but being really the grandson of Heli. It is not credible that can mean both son and grandson in the same sentence. J. Lightfoot proposed that Jesus (viz. , not ) should be understood throughout; Jesus (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, and so the son of Heli, and so the son of Matthat, etc. (Hor. Heb. on Luk 3:23). But this is not probable: see on (ver. 38).

It is evident from the wording that Lk. is here giving the genealogy of Joseph and not of Mary. It would have been quite out of harmony with either Jewish ideas or Gentile ideas to derive the birthright of seas from His mother. In the eye of the law Jesus was the heir of Joseph; and therefore it is Josephs descent which is of importance. Mary may have been the daughter of Heli; but, if she was, Lk. ignores the fact. The difference between the two genealogies was from very early times felt to be a difficulty, as is seen from the letter of Julius Africanus to Aristides, c. a.d. 220 (Eus. H. E. 1:7; Routh, Rel. Sacr. 2. P. 228); and it is probable that so obvious a solution, as that one was the pedigree of Joseph and the other the pedigree of Mary, would have been very soon advocated, if there had been any reason (excepting the difficulty) for adopting it. But this solution is not advocated by anyone until Annius of Viterbo propounded it, c. a.d. 1490. Yet see Victorinus (?) on Rev 4:7 (Migne v. 324).

The main fact of the two genealogies are these. From Adam to Abraham Lk. is alone. From Abraham to David, Lk, and Mt. agree. From David to Joseph they differ, excepting in the names of Zorobabel and his father Salathiel. The various attempts which have been made at reconciling the divergences, although in no case convincingly successful, are yet sufficient to show that reconciliation is not impossible. Neverthcless, the possibility that we have here divergent attempts of Jewish pedigree-makers may be admitted; for divergent theories, corresponding to the two genealogies, existed at the time. In addition to the authorities named above, the monographs of Hottinger, Surenhusius, and Voss may be consulted. See also the parallel tables in Resch, Kindheitsev. p. 188.

27. . It is highly improbable that these are different persons from the Zerubbabel and the Shealtiel of Mat 1:12. That at the same period of Jewish history there should be two fathers bearing the rare name Salathiel or Shealtiel, each with a son bearing the rare name Zerubbabel, and that both of these unusually-named fathers should come in different ways into the genealogy of the Messiah, is scarcely credible, although this hypothesis has been adopted by both Hottinger and Voss. Zerubbabel (= Dispersed in Babylon, or Begotten in Babylon) was head of the tribe of Judah at the time of the return from the Babylonish Captivity in the first year of Cyrus; and he was therefore an obvious person to include in the pedigree of the Messiah. Hence he was called the Rhesa or Prince of the Captivity. In 1Ch 3:19 he is given as the son of Pedaiah and nephew of Shealtiel: and this is probably correct. But he became the heir of Shealtiel because the latter had no sons. In Mat 1:12 and 1Ch 3:17, Shealtiel is the son of Jechoniah, king of Judah; whereas Lk. makes him the son of Neri. Jeconiah. is called Coniah, Jer 22:24, and Jehoiachin, 52:31; 2Ki 24:6; 2Ch 36:8, 2Ch 36:9; and all three names mean The Lord will establish. From Jer 22:30 we learn that he had no children; and therefore the line of David through Solomon became extinct in him. The three pedigrees indicate that an heir for the childless Jeconiah was found in Shealtiel the son of Neri, who was of the house of David through Nathan. Thus the junction of the two lines of descent in Shealtiel1 and Zerubbabel is fully explained. Shealtiel was the son of Neri of Nathans line, and also the heir of Jeconiah of Solomons line; and having no sons himself, he had his nephew Zerubbabel as adopted son and heir. Rhesa, who appears in Lk., but neither in Mt. nor in 1 Chron., is probably not a name at all, but a title, which some Jewish copyist mistook for a name. Zerubbabel Rhesa, or Zerubbabel the Prince, has been made into Zerubbabel (begat) Rhesa. This correction brings Lk. into harmony with both Mt. and 1 Chron. For (1) the Greek represents the Hebrew Hananiah (1Ch 3:19), a generation which is omitted by Mt.; and (2) Lk.s is the same as Mt.s (Jud-a = Ab-jud). Again, or may be identified with Hodaviah (1Ch 3:24); for this name is interchanged with Judah, as is seen by a comparison of Ezr 3:9 and Neh 11:9 with Ezr 2:40 and 1Ch 9:7.

36. . In LXX this Cainan appears as the father of Sala or Shelah, and son of Arphaxad, in the genealogy of Shem (Gen 10:24, Gen 10:11:12; 1Ch 1:18). But the name is not found in any Hebrew MS., or in any other version made from the Hebrew. In LXX it may be an insertion, for no one earlier than Augustine mentions the name. D omits it here, while B L have the form for . But the hypothesis that interpolation here has led to interpolation in LXX cannot be maintained upon critical principles.

38. . That Lk. should take the genealogy beyond David and Abraham to the father of the whole human race, is entirely in harmony with the Pauline universality of his Gospel. To the Jew it was all-important to know that the Messiah was of the stock of Abraham and of the house of David. Mt. therefore places this fact in the forefront of his Gospel. Lk., writing to all alike, shows that the Messiah is akin to the Gentile as well as to the Jew, and that all mankind can claim Him as a brother.1

But why does Lk. add that Adam was the son of God? Certainly not in order to show the Divine Sonship of the Messiah, which would place Him in this respect on a level with all mankind More probably it is added for the sake of Gentile readers, to remind them of the Divine origin of the human race,-an origin which they share with the Messiah. It is a correction of the myths respecting the origin of man, which were current among the heathen. Scriptura, etiam quod ad humani generis ortum pertinet, figit satiatque cognitionem nostram; eam qui spernunt aut ignorant, pendent errantque inter tempora antemundana et postmundana (Beng.). It is very forced and unnatural to take as the gen. of , and make this gen. depend upon at the beginning of the genealogy, as if Jesus and not Adam was styled the son of God. Thus the whole pedigree from to would be a gigantic parenthesis between and . The throughout belongs to the word in front of it, as is clear from the fact that , the first name, has no before it. Each means who was of, i.e. either the son of or the heir of. Both AV. and RV. give the sense correctly.

1 For the chief data respecting the limits of our Lords life see Lft. Biblical Essays, p. 58, note; and on Lk.s chronology in these verses see Ewald, Hist. of Israel, vi., Eng. tr. p. 149, and Lange. L. of C. bk. 2Pe_3. 1, 1. p. 342.

Beng. Bengel.

Aug. Augustine.

Jos. Josephus.

D D. Cod. Bezae, sc. vi. Given by Beza to the University Library at Cambridge 1581. Greek and Latin. Contains the whole Gospel.

1 Josephus says that David appointed Zadok high priest (Ant. 7:5, 4). See Lft. Biblical Essays, p. 163.

AV. Authorized Version.

RV. Revised Version.

D. B. Smiths Dictionary of the Bible, 2nd edition.

Sin. Sinaitic.

1 This part of Johns ministry, viz. his work as a reformer, Josephus has brought out prominently; while he has entirely failed to notice the indelible stamp of the Baptists labours left upon the history of the Theocracy (Neander, L. J. C. 34).

1 Lactantius, in writing de Pnitentia prefers resipiscentia as a better, although still inadequate, rendering. Is enim quem facti sui pnitet, errorem suum pristinum intelligit; ideoque Grci melius et significantius dicunt, quam nos latine possumus resipiscentiam dicere. Resipiscit enim at mentem suam quasi ab insania recipit, etc. (Div. Inst. 6:24, 6).

Wsctt. Westcott.

Trench, Trench, New Testament Synonyms.

Crem. Cremer, Lexicon of New Testament Greek.

1 Ewald says of the prophecy of which these verses form the introduction, that it is not only the most comprehensive, but also, in respect of its real prophetic subject-matter, the weightiest piece of that time, and altogether one of the most important portions of the O.T., and one of the richest in influence for all future time. It is especially the thought of the passing away of the old time, and the flourishing of the new, which is the life of the plece (Prophets of O. T., Eng. tr. 4. pp. 244, 254; comp. pp. 257, 259).

Vulg. Vulgate.

Win. Winer, Grammar of N.T. Greek (the page refers to Moultons edition).

Wetst. Wetstein.

V. de J. Vie de Jsus.

Edersh. Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.

Syr Syriac.

1 In the Passio S. Perpetu, iii., the martyr suffers much , and this is represented in the Latin by concussur militum, Comp. Tert. De Fuga in Pers. xii., xiii.

1 Comp. Mar 7:25; 1Pe 2:24; Rev 3:8, Rev 3:7:2, Rev 3:9, Rev 3:13:8, Rev 3:20:8. Such pleonasms are Hebraistic, and are specially common in LXX (Gen 1:11; Exo 35:29, etc.); Win. xxii. 4 (b), p. 184.

1 The wooden shovel, pala lignea (Cato, R. R. vi. 45. 151), ventilabrum (Varro, R. R. i. 52), seems to have been more primitive than the vannus, which was a basket, shaped like the blade of a large shovel. The was a shovel rather than a basket. In Tertullian (Prscrip. iii.) palam in manu portat ad purgandam aream suam is probably the true reading: but some MSS. have ventilabrum for palam.

2 The form is worth noting: in later Greek for is not uncommon. Mt. here has , but classical writers prefer. to .-For the details of Oriental threshing see Herzog, Pro_2 art. Ackerbau; D.B.2 art. Agriculture. For comp. Job 21:18, and Hdt. iv. 72. 2; the sing. is less common (Jer 23:28).

Eus. Eusebius of Csarea

Found in Luke alone.

Cod. Codex Amiatimus.

A A. Cod. Alexandrinus, sc. v. Once in the Patriarchal Library at Alexandria; sent by Cyril Lucar as a present to Charles 1. in 1628, and now in the British Museum. Complete.

C

C. Cod. Ephraemi Rescriptus, sc. 5. In the National Library at Paris. Contains the following portions of the Gospel: 1:2-2:5, 2:42-3:21, 4:25-6:4, 6:37-7:16, or 17, 8:28-12:3, 19:42-20:27, 21:21-22:19, 23:25-24:7, 24:46-53.

These four MSS. are parts of what were once complete Bibles, and are designated by the same letter throughout the LXX and N.T.

K K. Cod. Cyprius, sc. ix. In the National Library at Paris. Contains the whole Gospel.

X X. Cod. Monacensis, sc. ix. In the University Library at Munich. Contains 1:1-37, 2:19-3:38, 4:21-10:37, 11:1-18:43, 20:46-24:53.

Ambr. Ambrose.

1 Both forms of the name, Shealtiel and Salathiel, are found in Haggai and elsewhere in O.T.; but in the Apocrypha and N.T. the form used is Salathiel (I have asked God).

Cod. Sinaiticus, sc. iv. Brought by Tischendorf from the Convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai; now at St. Petersburg. Contains the whole Gospel complete.

B B. Cod. Vaticanus, sc. 4. In the Vatican Library certainly since 15331 (Batiffol, La Vaticane de Paul 3, etc., p. 86).

L L. Cod. Regius Parisiensis, sc. viii. National Library at Paris. Contains the whole Gospel.

1 In the one case we see a royal Infant born by a legal title to a glorinus inheritance; and in the other a ministering Saviour who bears the natural sum of human sorrow (Wsctt. Int. to the Gospels, 7th ed. P. 316). The whole passage should be read.

Fuente: International Critical Commentary New Testament

a Preacher of Righteousness

Luk 3:1-14

The evangelist sets an emperor, a governor, two high priests, and three tetrarchs in a few lines, as of very subordinate interest, compared with the one man, the child of the desert, whose coming dated a new era and to whom he devotes the remainder of the chapter. After all, it is religious men who really make the history of mankind.

The word of God came unto John the Baptist and he came. That is the true order. Get your message and then come. It is often in the wilderness of life that Gods words find us. The man who is going to master men must first master the appetites of his own body. If you seek popularity, you will lose it; if you seek to do Gods will, men will almost certainly come to find you. Souls require a clear pane of glass, when they look out on the infinite expanse of the sky! Be real! Live at first-hand with eternal truth! Fear not the face of man!

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

The Baptism Of Jesus — Luk 3:1-22

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the Word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; as it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise. Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages. And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not; John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and will gather the wheat into His garner; but the chaff He will burn with fire unquenchable. And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people. But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias his brother Philips wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done, added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison. Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased- Luk 3:1-22.

This passage brings before us the baptism of John, the baptism to which our blessed Lord Himself submitted.

Perhaps there is no person portrayed by the pen of inspiration less understood than John the Baptist. Our Lord Jesus said of him that of all those born of women there had never been a greater than he, but yet he that is the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist. He stood at the door inviting people to enter. He never got in himself. He did not belong to the new dispensation in its fulness, but he showed the way to others; so in the sense of privilege, those who are in the kingdom of heaven are greater than he. But Jesus said that of all the prophets none was greater than John. Abraham was not greater. Moses was not greater; David was not; neither were Isaiah nor Jeremiah greater. John the Baptist in some way outshone them all. He was chosen by the Spirit of God to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and to seek to bring men and women to an attitude of soul where they would be ready to receive the Saviour when He appeared before them.

In telling the story, Luke is very specific. He writes as a careful historian. He gives us dates that any readers of his own time would have been able to verify, and that we ourselves to some extent are able to verify today. He tells us exactly when John the Baptist began his ministry. It was in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberious Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod, tetrarch of Galilee. This was a grandson of the infamous Herod who was responsible for the slaughter of the babes in Bethlehem. His brother Philip was tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias was the tetrarch of Abilene. John got into trouble later on because of the fact that Herod lured away his brother Philips wife, and took her to himself. Then we are told that Annas and Caiaphas were high-priests in Judaea. We might ask, According to the Old Testament Scriptures how could there be two high-priests? There was to be only one high-priest at a time and then he was to be succeeded by his son. But at this time everything was out of order and the high-priesthood was a political plum bought and sold by the Roman conquerors who gave the office to the highest bidder. Annas was retired later on, and his son-in-law, Caiaphas, had the position. But they were both recognized as high-priests.

It was at this time, when Israel was in dire confusion, that the Word of God came to John the Baptist. Thirty years or more had gone by since his birth. We know nothing of his early training. We are not given any particulars as to how the Lord made Himself known to him, and gave him to realize that he was appointed to be the herald of the coming of the Saviour. Evidently for sometime he had been dwelling in the wilderness. Many of Gods servants had graduated from the university of the wilderness! Moses was given a post-graduate course there for forty years. Much of Davids training was given him in the wilderness. Take Elijah the Prophet-what lessons he had to learn out in the desert! And our blessed Saviour Himself spent forty days in the wilderness of Quarantana.

John the Baptist suddenly appeared in the region around Jordan, and we are told he was preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. He was not telling people that if they would be baptized their sins would be remitted. There is no such doctrine as that in Scripture. When we read of being baptized for the remission of sins it means that by baptism one confesses that he deserves to die. When John the Baptist called upon the people to be baptized confessing their sins, he was telling them that they were lost, that they deserved to die, that they could not make atonement for their own sins; but he told them of One who could. Some people imagine that John knew nothing of the grace of God. They forget that his real message was this: Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Who said that? John the Baptist. That is the gospel of the grace of God. Did John the Baptist preach the gospel? Yes! He told men that only through the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus, would their sins be remitted. He stood there in the Jordan valley and he drove home to the people their sins. We are told that those who believed his words justified God, and were baptized of him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. Their baptism was the outward acknowledgment of their lost condition. All this was in accordance with prophecy. We are referred to Chapter 40 of Isaiah where God says, Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God. The prophet looks up and asks, How will I comfort them? The voice of God says, Cry that all flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. If God is going to comfort men they must first own their utter good-for-nothingness in His sight. To bolster men up in their own self-righteousness by trying to make them believe they have ability in themselves whereby they may save their own souls, is simply misleading men, and those who so preach will be responsible for soul-murder. The true servant of God is to put before men their lost condition in order that they may see their need of a Saviour. So Isaiah tells us that one was coming into the world with a message like this: Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. There is beautiful poetry in the Bible. He means that Gods messenger was to go forth before the face of the coming Messiah as a leveler, to bring all men to one common plane, the recognition of their sinnership: All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. John was to bring this to the hearts and consciences of Israel in order that they might realize how badly they needed the Saviour who was about to come.

Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? In the great audience he saw many who were really unreal. They were there sight-seeing. They had heard of the strange, weird, desert-preacher, and they wanted to find out what he was doing. So John turned to them and said, All of you who have never been born of God, who are not honest with God, and do not want to be honest with God, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? John says, If you profess to be the people of God evidence this in your lives. Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. Do not misunderstand me. He was not saying they could be saved by anything they might do. They were in the place of covenant relationship with God. They professed to be the seed of Abraham, and yet their lives were bringing disrepute upon the very name they bore. Whatever you profess to be, evidence it in your lives. Repent. What is repentance? It is self-judgment. It is a complete change of mind and attitude. If you have repented, if you have faced your sins before God, if you know deliverance from them as shown by new lives, you are a truly repentant people. Do not fall back on natural relationship. It would be a small thing for God to raise up children from the stones unto Abraham. The mere fact that you are Israelites does not mean that you are children of God. It is just another way of saying what Jesus said to Nicodemus later on, You must be born again.

Then John adds, And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. In many places today you will hear beautiful, eloquent sermons that really would amount to this: The axe is laid to the fruit of the tree. In other words, men are told, Give up your bad ways. Give up your evil behavior. Everything will be all right and you will be saved by reformation. You will be saved by ethical culture. You will be saved by character. Thats all you need. Imagine an orchardist trying to make a bad tree produce good fruit by cutting off all the imperfect fruit! The next crop will be just more bad fruit. The more you keep cutting it off the more bad fruit there will be. It wont change the nature of the tree at all. The apple-tree isnt an apple-tree because it bears eatable apples. It bears good apples because it is a good apple-tree. A crab-apple tree isnt bad because it bears crab-apples. It bears crab-apples because it is a crab-apple tree. A man isnt a sinner because he sins. He sins because he is a sinner. Thats the trouble with him. Thats why he needs to be born again. Thats why John the Baptist came saying, Cut it down completely. Let there be a new thing altogether. The axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that beareth not good fruit shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire. Nothing you can do as a natural man will enable you to bring forth fruit to God. The apostle Paul preached the same doctrine that John the Baptist preached. He told the Ephesian elders that throughout his ministry. He preached repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance means that the natural man takes Gods side against himself. God says, All have sinned. Man says, Im not a sinner. The penitent confesses he is a sinner. He acknowledges his sin. He confesses his guilt. There is a Saviour for sinners. Thats the gospel. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. But it is only the repentant one who cares anything about his Saviour.

When men do not realize their lost condition, they do not care. But when the Holy Spirit of God awakens a man to see his need, he is ready for Christ. When John the Baptists ministry takes effect, and when men realize the axe is laid to the root of the tree, and they come down before God and take sides with God, they say, Tell me about the Saviour, and then the further message of John the Baptist fits in, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

When John saw the people were repentant he baptized them and they confessed their sins. He expected them, however, to give some evidence of their sincerity. If you have two coats look around for a fellow who doesnt have one, and if you have more food than you need, divide with somebody else. There are many professing Christians who could not stand that test. One evidence that a man is truly repentant toward God is that he has real concern for his fellow-men who are in worse circumstances than he is himself. So John says, Show yourself by your concern for others. To the publicans, that is, the tax-collectors, who inquired, What shall we do? He said, You be careful now. Dont you gouge the people. Dont you take any more than you should-exact no more than is appointed you. That would be the evidence of a repentant tax-collector. Even Roman soldiers came to John asking, What shall we do? He replied, Dont swagger so much, and dont act as if you are so important. Dont trample on the rights of any man! Do violence to no man! Serve your country, and try and let it go at that. Dont lord it over other folks. Understand, not as a means of salvation, but as an evidence of repentance. This would show that they were genuine.

The people were greatly interested and they wondered whether John himself might be the promised Messiah, but he said, No, I am not He. I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, or, He is going to baptize you with fire. Do not make the mistake that some people do-as though the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost are the same thing. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is something which every believer enters into, but the baptism of fire is the baptism of judgment which all men must know who reject the salvation that God has provided. See what he says about that: He will truly purge His floor. He will gather the wheat into His garner-that is the redeemed- but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire-those are the unreal.

Herod heard about this. He wanted to see the strange desert-preacher. We are told he sent for him and he liked to hear John talk. There was something about that earnest man that appealed to the poor, wretched, godless Herod, and he was stirred. But when John spoke out plainly concerning Herods adulterous relation with his brothers wife, Herod was angry. John said, It is not lawful for thee to have her. Herod said, I didnt ask you to come and tell me how to live. I dont believe in preachers interfering in personal affairs. Keep out of this. But John refused to keep out of it. Herod said, Off to jail with you, and that was the end of John the Baptist, so far as his ministry was concerned. Herod liked to hear him preach as long as he did not touch the sin of Herods own life. There are many people like that. They can enjoy fervent, earnest preaching as long as it is directed to somebody else, but when it comes home to them it is too personal. They dont like it.

Before John was put into prison something very important happened. When all the people were baptized it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized. He came to John, and He stepped down to the waters of Jordan. John drew back as he recognized Him, and said, as it were, I cannot baptize you in repentance. You have nothing to repent of. I have need to be baptized by you. But Jesus replied, in effect, John, you baptize Me. I know that I am not a sinner, but I see these sinners being baptized, and I am going to take My place with them. I am here today to pledge Myself to fulfil every righteous demand of the throne of God on their behalf. It was His pledge to go to the cross and die for sinners. So John baptized Him. When I see my Lord going down into Jordan I say, There He is promising to go to the cross and die for me. He came forth from the waters, and the Spirit descended like a dove upon Him, and a voice was heard saying, Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased.

At the very time when He had pledged Himself to fulfil all righteousness on behalf of sinners which involved His being made sin for them God the Father signified His delight in Him and declared Him to be the Holy One who glorified Him in all His ways.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Luk 3:2-14

I. How shall we picture John the Baptist to ourselves? Great painters, greater than the world seems likely to see again, have exercised their fancy upon his face, his figure, and his actions. We must put out of our minds, I fear, at once, many of the loveliest of them all, those in which Raffaelle and others have depicted the child John, in his camel’s-hair raiment, with a child’s cross in his hand, worshipping the Infant Christ. There is also one exquisite picture, by Annibale Caracci, in which the blessed Babe is lying asleep, and the blessed Virgin signs to St. John, pressing forward to adore Him, not to awake his sleeping Lord and God. But such imaginations, beautiful as they are and true in heavenly, spiritual sense, which therefore is true eternally for you and me and all mankind, are not historic fact. For St. John the Baptist said himself, “And I knew Him not.” The best picture which I can recollect of John is the great picture by Guido of the magnificent lad sitting on the rock, half-clad in his camel’s-hair robe, his stalwart hand lifted up to denounce he hardly knows what, save that things are going all wrong, utterly wrong to him. The wild rocks are around him, the clear sky is over him, and nothing more.

II. St. John preached the most common-let me say boldly, the most vulgar, in the good old sense of the word-the most vulgar morality. He tells his hearers that an awful ruin was coming unless they repented and mended. How fearfully true his words were the next fifty years proved. The axe, he said, was laid to the root of the tree, and the axe was the heathen Roman, even then master of the land. But God, not the Roman Csar merely, was laying the axe. And He was a good God, who only wanted goodness, which He would preserve; not badness, which He would destroy. Therefore men must not merely repent and do penance, they must bring forth fruits meet for penance; do right instead of doing wrong lest they be found barren trees to be cut down and cast into that everlasting fire of God, which, thanks be to His Holy Name, burns for ever, unquenchable by all men’s politics and systems and political or other economies, to destroy out of God’s kingdom all that offendeth and whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie-oppressors, quacks, cheats, hypocrites, and the rest.

C. Kingsley, All Saints’ Day and Other Sermons, p. 256.

Reference: Luk 3:2.-J. M. Sloan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 355.

Luk 3:3

I. The teaching of St. John the Baptist, as it is described to us in Scripture, was perhaps different to what many would have expected. He had not only been sanctified to God in the world, and had been born of holy parents and kept unspotted from the world; but when he came forth to preach repentance he had been dwelling for thirty years in the wilderness, not only apart from other men, but living in a very hard and severe way, unlike other men. When, therefore, he came down among the cities of men as the great preacher of repentance; and found himself surrounded with multitudes of all kinds given up to sins and vices of which he knew nothing; we might have expected that he would have said something of the desert and his own more excellent mode of life, that he would have called upon all men to retire from so wicked a world, and to live, like himself, quite disengaged from all temporal things. But the holy Baptist’s teaching was far different from this; he was as gentle and considerate to others as he was severe and unsparing to himself; they confessed their sins unto him, and he entered into all their temptations; and instead of requiring of them great and difficult things, he told them to avoid their besetting sins and temptations, and so amend their lives.

II. It may be observed that the teaching of the Bible is throughout of this nature. Men are inclined to put themselves forward for great things, and for putting great things before others, because this gratifies the secret pride of our hearts; and certain it is that there is nothing so great but that we ought to do it in religion and which God will, if we seek Him, give us strength to do. But this great thing probably lies much nearer home than we are willing to suppose; it consists in overcoming ourselves and in breaking through some besetting sin which may seem a small matter: so it was in the teaching of the great preacher of repentance; he told men of some besetting temptation which lay at their own door-of that evil spirit who was watching and waiting for them in their daily life; which was first and beyond all things to be attended to.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to “Tracts for the Times,” vol. i., p. 20.

References: Luk 3:3.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p. 99. Luk 3:3, Luk 3:4.-F. W. Robertson, The Human Race and Other Sermons, p. 267.

Luk 3:4

It may be that many have never clearly understood what was meant by John being Christ’s forerunner, why any forerunner was needed, and what truth is declared to us in this part of God’s dispensations, which showed that he was needed.

I. The subject is very vast, and might be illustrated by many examples, taken either from history or from private life. And the truth contained in it is this: that Christ’s work has never been done effectually in men’s hearts, except so far as the work of His forerunner has been done beforehand; that the baptism of the Spirit requires the previous baptism of water; or, in other words, that no man can profitably receive the truths of the Gospel, unless they find his heart made ready by repentance; unless they find him in that state that he knows the evil of his heart, and hates it, and longs to be delivered from it.

II. Why is it that, within our own knowledge, the work of Christ’s Spirit is yet wrought so imperfectly? Why are not our lives and thoughts Christian, as well as our outward profession? Is it not because with us too, in so many instances, Christ had been preached to us without His forerunner; because we have never been prepared by repentance to seek His salvation aright?

III. Again, the preparation of Christ’s forerunner is needed, because we are apt, as the world goes on, to take up our notions of right and wrong from those about us; to call good what the world calls good, and evil what the world calls evil. The business of Christ’s forerunner was to make men aware of this; to show them that their notions of good and evil wanted correction; that far less faults than they dreamed of would be their condemnation in God’s judgment; that far higher virtues than those which they thought excellent were needed to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. vi., p. 109.

Luk 3:4-6

Earnestness.

Of all men that ever lived, John the Baptist was one great concentrated earnestness. The earnestness of which I wish to speak consists in a “prepared way” and straight paths.

I. Before there can be earnestness, there must first be: (1) A fixed conviction that God loves you; that God desires to have you; that Christ is waiting to come into your heart; that He will soon be here; and that your eternal happiness depends upon whether you are ready to meet Him as a forgiven man, as a holy man, as a prepared man. (2) Next, upon these facts it is to have made up your mind thoroughly, once and for all, that you will be a Christian-cost what it may. (3) It is to have made up your mind that nothing whatever shall stand in the way-no object, however dear, no sin, however pleasant. (4) It is to have some great object in view, something steadily in hand, something you are living up to-some good work which you will enterprise, something for love, something for God. (5) It is to be faithful and diligent in the use of means, as one who feels very weak, whose new warmth makes him feel very cold. (6) It is to do all as in a very short time. “My Saviour will soon be here,-I must keep all the approaches clear.”

II. Let me ask three things: (1) Are you, as yet, really in earnest about your soul? Are you earnest in proportion to the greatness of the subject? (2) Is the way of God prepared? Is it a highway? Could He come in and find everything open and ready to receive Him? (3) Are all your “paths,” your little “ways”-your paths, are they all straight, quite straight? With a God so earnest in all He is doing for you, with death so earnest all about you, with an enemy so very earnest in your breast, with so much to be done in that heart of yours before it is ready, with such a work for God to be done in the world before you die, with such issues at stake-a Christ so near-it is time to be earnest.

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1871, p. 137.

References: Luk 3:4.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 3. Luk 3:7.-New Manual of Sunday School Addresses, p. 52. Luk 3:7-18.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 127. Luk 3:8, Luk 3:9.-Ibid., p. 46.

Luk 3:10

Duty.

The final stage of religion is duty. Everything else, however comforting, however holy, however true, is only its cradle. The maturity of man is his obedience. If I had to define duty, I should say that it is doing what is right-that is, what conscience and the Bible tell us to do-in any relation of life. And since we have all a relation to God in everything we do, it is doing what is right towards God, or what is right towards man, for God’s sake. But we have to do this morning with duty as it connects itself with Advent. And let me mention one of the two points in which duty and Advent meet.

I. In every Advent of Christ, whether it be those continual Advents by which He now approaches and knocks at the door of a man’s heart, or whether it be the early harbingers and the tokens of His arrival, when He shall return to our earth again, it is of immense importance that we shall be able quickly to recognise and clearly to perceive it. Now keen religious perception always goes with a high moral state. Trace it as you may, the fact is certain, that a life of duty and a ready apprehension of truth always go together.

II. Another link which fastens duty to Advent is this: that our Lord, when He comes, would wish to find us each at our own proper work, whatever that work may be. I gather this from three things: (1) First, as far as we have any record, Christ, when He came before, always chose those whom He found at their work. The call did not find them in their retirement, but in their engagements. (2) Christ Himself has said it, speaking of domestic duties, “Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing.” (3) The Advent will be the end of all earthly work; and therefore it must find it done, else it will be undone for ever. Would you not wish Christ to have the joy of finding you, when He comes, where you ought to be, copying His busy, useful life, and doing right and important things for His glory, with the very motive that may be blessed when He comes to see you?

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1871, p. 153.

Luk 3:10-14

I. St. John’s three answers all go upon the principle of “doing our duty in that state of life unto which it hath pleased God to call us;” but they are the more striking as coming from a person like St. John, a person so entirely out of the ordinary course, to whom any of the names with which careless people delighted to brand those who have been led to a more than usually solemn sense of their condition before God, might be most fitly applied; he might be called an enthusiast, one who held very strange notions, a man whose religion had turned his head, and so forth; and yet you will perceive that this strange preacher of repentance who appeared to hold such extreme views about fasting and penance and the like, did, when applied to, give rules of holiness which seem to err all on the other side. Some persons would tell us that there is no religion in them at all, that they are only rules of morality, and that spiritual religion is something different from and beyond morality. Well, be it so; but still these were St. John’s directions for preparing to meet Christ.

II. St. John did not say that this was the whole of the religion which He who came after him would have to teach; on the other hand, he used some mysterious language about a “baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” which should contrast strongly with his own baptism, which was merely a baptism with water unto repentance. But although St. John knew better than most men the truth that Christ was coming as a revealer of mysteries, and a founder of a more spiritual religion, and a medium of much nearer communion with God than any which had yet been vouchsafed to man, he still laid the foundation in the performance of common duties, he still preached this as the best preparation for the coming of Christ, that men should each in their own calling do their duty as in the fear of God. Do your duty where God has placed you; be honest, be diligent, be kind, be pitiful, not slothful in business, but yet in all things fearing the Lord; and though this may not be all, yet at least it is the beginning of all good things, and is the true foundation of the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 4th series, p. 346.

References: Luk 3:10-14.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 151. Luk 3:10-15.-Outline Sermons to Children, p. 153. Luk 3:15-22.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 449.

Luk 3:16

Expectation.

Have you never observed that everyone’s character is determined by what he is living up to? Why is the Mohammedan an idle and self-indulgent man? Because he lives up to a corporeal and indolent and sensuous heaven. Why is the Brahmin a man of apathy? Because, after all his transmigrations, he has nothing to expect, according to his creed, but annihilation, absolute annihilation. Why does the believer grow holy and loving, but because he is always realising in his mind the heaven of holiness and love to which he is going? Certainly expectation is a duty.

I. But God has done with this faculty of expectation what He has done with all the natural powers and habits of the human mind-He has sanctified it and elevated it. And this is the way God has done it. He has thrown into it first truth, then affection, and then great delight, so He has made it hope. What is it? Expectation with desire from the beginning, hope has been the great principle of God’s moral government of the world. The moment that man fell, and the present became unhappy, the antidote was hope: “I will put enmity;” “the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” Observe, at once, the mind was sent off into the future for its comfort. It was the same with Abraham; he had nothing, he was to have everything. The Jews lived by their prophecies. All sacrifice speaks the same language. And now what is the aim, the consolation, the theme, the life of the whole Church, but the coming back of her dear Lord? And when He comes, there may be another future to look forward to still, and probably another and another and another.

II. Notice in this long line of expectation that the next thing in the succession is always greater and better than that which preceded it. The series is always rising-every prophecy has its range of fulfilment; first an early and historical one, then an inward and spiritual one, then an evangelical one in the life and death of Jesus Christ, then an ultimate one in yet future glories. If you could read it so, whenever anything happy comes to you-an answered prayer, a gift of God-you may always hear it saying, “I am only a pledge of something else; there is something better than I am behind.” All along, at every stage, the principle is the same, and the words of the Baptist have their echo and their counterpart everywhere: “One mightier than I cometh.”

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1871, p. 170.

References: Luk 3:16.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1044; Homiletic Magazine, vol. i., p. 99.

Luk 3:17

Judaism and Christianity.

Christ came and hewed out for the waters of the old Judaism a new and fitting channel. He led it away from the political groove where it would have been destroyed by uniting it with a spiritual kingdom. He added to it other and deeper thoughts. Instead of saying that Christ caused a revolution which put back the progress of the world, we should say that He saved the revolution which was necessary from the violence which would have brought about its ruin; that He saved it from having to be done all over again; as, to give a political illustration, has been the case with the French Revolution. What now were the characteristics of the revolution?

I. It was destructive. Christ saw that the time had come, that the whole world of Jews and heathens was so choked up with chaff that a slow process would be ruin. He seized the moment, He accepted its dangers, and He sent forth ideas which flew along like flame, consuming, destroying, but also assimilating. “The chaff He burned up with unquenchable fire.”

II. But if Christianity was destructive as a revolution it was also preservative. If Christ sent forth ideas which consumed the chaff, He sent them forth also to gather the wheat into His garner. No noble feelings or true thought, either in Judaism or in heathenism, perished. They were taken up and woven into the new fabric.

III. Its third element was a civilising power. Neither Greek science nor Roman culture had power to spread beyond themselves. Rome did not try to civilise in the right way. Instead of drawing forth the native energies of conquered nations, it imposed on them from without the Roman education. It tried to turn them into Romans. The Christian teachers reversed the Roman mode of proceeding. Hence the peculiar character of any nation was not lost in Christianity, but so far as it was good developed and intensified. The people grew naturally into their distinctive place in the world.

S. A. Brooke, Christ in Modern Life, p. 47.

References: Luk 3:18-20.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 49. Luk 3:19, Luk 3:20.-Ibid., p. 235; F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 270.

Luk 3:21-22

Christ’s Baptism, a Token of Pentecost.

Without all question, there is a deep and mysterious connection between the baptism of our Saviour and the coming of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles. They are, if we may so speak, parts of the same wonderful work of God, the saving Christian people by the kingdom of heaven. Christ’s baptism was the beginning, the coming down of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost was the middle, the baptism of each Christian is, in a certain sense, part of the end.

I. Our Saviour was praying after His baptism when the Holy Ghost came upon Him; so the Apostles, when they returned from witnessing His ascension, continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, until He sent the Comforter, according to His promise. As it was the same heavenly Person who came down first upon the Head and afterwards upon the members, so there was, by God’s providence, a great resemblance between the outward tokens given in the one case and in the other.

II. These outward tokens of the Holy Comforter’s presence do not only make us sure of that presence, but also instruct us not a little in the manner and in the greatness of the change He works in us. (1) Water, for example, pure water, springing out of the earth, or dropping from heaven by the immediate gift of God, who sees not that it represents the refreshing and cleansing power of that Divine grace which, coming direct from God, purifies the stain of our hearts, and makes us strong and active to keep the commandments? Who is not reminded by it of the living water which the Lord has promised to give us, not only to quench our thirst for the time, but to be in us “a well of water springing up to everlasting life”? (2) Again, what signified the fiery tongues? Surely they had the substance of of fire, because of the searching power of Christ’s Spirit, which in a wonderful manner tries every man’s heart of what sort it is, penetrating into all the dark corners of our souls, and where it is not resisted, enlightening, warming, melting all. (3) What are we to learn from the appearance of the Holy Ghost as a dove? The voice of the Holy Ghost in prayer, inwardly uttered in a Christian’s heart, is like the unwearied melancholy tones of the dove. This reason is given us by a great and holy bishop, St. Augustine; and he adds another-the simple, harmless innocence of the dove; and yet another-its gentle, peaceful, loving nature, whereby it becomes the token both of truth and charity.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to “Tracts for the Times,” vol. vii., p. 136; see also J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension Day to Trinity, p. 176.

References: Luk 3:21, Luk 3:22.-G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 75; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 75; vol. x., p. 294. Luk 3:21-23.-W. Hanna, Our Lord’s Life on Earth, p. 50.

Luk 3:22

The descent of the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove was an emblem of the new dispensation which the Saviour came to announce; and instead of the fiery law, delivered in the midst of blackness and darkness and tempest, and the deafening sound of the trumpet, the blessed Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and the assuring truth was taught that grace and truth had come by Jesus Christ.

I. As the brooding of the Spirit of God upon the face of the deep produced order and life in the beginning, so does He impart new life to the soul and open the eyes of the understanding, that we may behold the wonders of God’s law.

II. In the fact that the Holy Ghost descended upon the Lord Jesus in the form of a dove, we are reminded that quietness is often essential to many of the operations of grace.

III. As the dove is an appropriate emblem of love, so the soul which is influenced by the blessed Spirit will abound in love to God and love to His people, IV. The descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove should remind us that gentleness is a distinguishing mark of Christian character in which most of us have very much to learn. The sight of a gentle dove picking its food quietly in the midst of a crowded street, noisy with the busy hum of traffic, suggested a pleasant thought. The beautiful bird did not seem out of place, but it rather appeared to say, by its guileless, innocent ways, that worldly employments have no triumphs so complete as to excuse the surrender of the pure and meek virtues of which the dove is a symbol. Its white glistening plumage casts rays of brightness even on the stony pavement, trodden by the hurried footsteps of the trader and the money-changers, and its gentle eyes reflected the spirit of the Saviour’s words: “Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”

J. N. Norton, Every Sunday, p. 288.

Luk 3:23

The Divinity of Christ.

Our discourse will turn upon the words, “As was supposed.” Our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was “supposed” to be the son of Joseph. But the words of the text seem to imply that He was not actually the son of Joseph: they are an indirect testimony to that grand truth which the evangelist St. Luke has already recorded, and the taking away of which would be the overthrow of the Christian religion: “Therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

I. There is no dispute that Christ is spoken of in the Bible as God, but there is much dispute as to the sense in which the language ought to be understood. There can be no dispute that the name “God” is often used in the Bible, when it cannot for a moment be supposed that it is used in its high and incommunicable sense. Thus it is said to Moses, “I have made thee a god to Pharaoh,”-where Moses is so called evidently not as being properly a god, but as being in that instance or circumstance in the place of God, and doing that which it is God’s office to do. But when you turn to the Bible, in order to determine whether it can only be in this secondary or figurative way that Christ is styled God, we are overwhelmed with proof that it must be in the same sense, and in as high a sense as the Father Himself is so styled. For Christ is called the Jehovah-a word of absolute signification, which is never given to any but the one true God.

II. Not only the titles but the attributes of Deity are ascribed in Scripture to Christ. The eternity of the Son is distinctly asserted; for Christ spoke of Himself as “He which is, and which was, and which is to come”-words which, like the name Jehovah, can only be interpreted as denoting independent and therefore eternal substance. Christ is also declared to be immutable, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and for ever;” omniscient, “Lord, Thou knowest all things;” omnipresent, “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” These attributes are all ascribed to Him whom some suppose to have been only Joseph’s son, and regard it as monstrous to look upon Him as God. Who can God be, if Christ be only man-Christ the eternal, Christ the omniscient, Christ the omnipresent?

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2,281.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

II. The Beginnings of His Ministry — Chapter 3-4:13

CHAPTER 3

1. The Ministry of John the Baptist. (Luk 3:1-14.)

2. His Testimony to Christ and his Imprisonment. (Luk 3:15-20.)

3. The Baptism of the Lord Jesus. (Luk 3:21-22.)

4. The Genealogy of Mary, the Mother of our Lord. (Luk 3:23-38.)

Luk 3:1-14

Eighteen more years of silence follow. It is broken by the voice of the forerunner, John, who preached at Jordan the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. He is not reported here preaching the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. He preached thus as the witness for the King and the Kingdom about to come. Matthew had to give the report of this preaching. Here we read that all flesh should see His salvation. This awaits still its great fulfillment when He comes the second time. Johns call to repentance is answered by the people, by the publicans and by the soldiers. They asked What shall we do? How different, however, the question concerning salvation and the answer. (Act 16:30-31).

Luk 3:15-20

Then he gave witness concerning Christ. The expectation among the people was great and some thought that John might be the Messiah. The answer he gives directs the people to the coming One. Luk 3:16-17 blend together the first and second Coming of Christ. The fire-baptism takes place when He comes again; it is the fire of judgment. His first coming has brought for all who believe in Him the baptism with the Holy Spirit.

Luk 3:21-22

We request the reader to turn at this point to the remarks made in our annotations on Matthew and Mark. Luke omits, however, the conversation which took place between our Lord and John; then there is the additional information that our Lord was praying, when heaven opened and the Holy Spirit came upon Him. The descent into the water signified His death and as the result of His death, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit came down. As He prayed in Jordan so He prayed in Gethsemane as He approached the cross. Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him out of death and was heard in that He feared. (Heb 5:7).

Luk 3:23-38

The age of our Lord, about thirty years, is only given by Luke. In the Gospel of the Manhood this properly belongs. The annotations on the first chapter in Matthew should be carefully considered here and the two genealogies compared. The genealogy in Matthew is that of the King; Lukes genealogy is that of the Son of Man. Matthews genealogy begins with David and Abraham and leads up to Joseph; Lukes genealogy begins with Joseph and leads up to Adam, the first man. It is a tracing backward to the head of the human race, Adam; and back of Adam is God Himself. So He who is God had come and became the Son of Man, the Second Man, the last Adam. The genealogy in Matthew is that of Joseph, a son of David, through the line of Solomon; Lukes genealogy is that of Mary, the mother of our Lord, who also is of David through the line of Nathan. Joseph is called in Lukes genealogy the son of Heli, because Mary was a daughter of Heli. Matthews Gospel tells us that Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

Chapter 18

The Making Of A Prophet

These words describe the beginning of this gospel age. After four hundred years of silence, God spoke again. And the voice by which he spoke was John the Baptist, that mighty Elijah, specifically raised up by God to prepare the way of the Lord, by whom God shook the heavens and the earth.

In Eph 4:11 the Holy Spirit tells us that Christs ascension gifts to his church include apostles, pastors, teachers, evangelists and prophets. In that fourth chapter of Ephesians the Apostle was inspired of God to quote a portion of Psalms 68, which is a prophetic declaration of the accomplishments of Christ as our Mediator. Redemption has been accomplished by the blood of Christ. His resurrection declares that the sins of Gods elect, which were made his and imputed to him, have been put away by his sacrifice. The Man who died for us at Calvary is now enthroned in glory and has received gifts of grace, gifts which he daily bestows upon his church for the salvation of his people.

The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them. Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah. He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto GOD the Lord belong the issues from death (Psa 68:17-20).

These ascension gifts of Christ, as I said, include apostles, pastors, teachers, evangelists and prophets. It is obvious that there is no continuing apostolic or prophetic office in a strict sense. The last apostle was Paul, and the last prophet was John the Baptist. Evangelists, as the Word is used in the Word of God, are not itinerant preachers, but what we now call missionaries, church planters. Pastors and teachers are those men called and gifted of God for the work of the ministry, preaching the gospel in a local church, building up the saints in the faith, edifying the body of Christ. The words pastors and teachers might be read more accurately pastors/teachers. They do not refer to two separate offices, but to the work of the pastor.

A Prophet

Because the term prophet is given as an ascension gift of Christ to his church, it is obvious that the word does not apply in this context to an office that was terminated before the Lords ascension.

It is very difficult to find anything useful being said or written in our day on the ministry of these men. What is a prophet? The word, as it is used regarding the New Testament era, seems to refer to men with extraordinary gifts, men who have a remarkable understanding of the scriptures, men who have a keen awareness of the times in which they live and the message required to meet the need of the hour.

The work of the New Testament prophet is shrouded in indefiniteness and lost in a fog of haziness. We know the old definition, A forthteller rather than a foreteller. We apply the term generally to preachers as spokesmen for God. But here is a distinctive calling separate from that of evangelist or pastor. Yet, the prophet may be an evangelist or a pastor.

A prophet, in this distinct sense of the word, appears to be a man distinctly gifted of God to lead his people in crucial times, with boldness and authority, which only God can give. Clearly, there were such men in the early church (Act 11:27-28; Act 13:1). At least six are named in Acts 11, 13 : Agabus, Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen and Saul.

There have never been many prophets, at least not many true prophets. But are there none? Our times cry for such men. Is there not a prophet? Are there none today to stand in the gap and dare speak for God? Never was the need greater and the supply smaller than today.

The prophet is a voice in the wilderness. It is his business to sound the trumpet, proclaim the Word of God, and press the claims of the sovereign God upon the hearts and lives of men. He does not work on details or set up programs. He does not devise schemes to raise funds or plan stage productions. A prophet does not belong on boards and committees. He is a solitary soul and does his best work alone. He is not a parrot, a puppet or a promoter. A prophet is never a team player. He is not a religious politician. He is a voice, a lone, dogmatic voice.

He is nothing but a prophet. If he tries to be or do anything else, he is an embarrassment to himself and to everyone around him. He is not a politician; and he is never popular with politicians either in state or church. He is not cowed by dignitaries. When necessary, he will call Herod a fox, even when he knows it may cost him his life.

A prophet is an unreconstructed rebel, an odd number in a day of regimentation. He has no more patience with mere religion than Isaiah had when he thundered against it, or Amos when he called on Israel to come to Bethel. It is his business to say what others cannot, will not, or at least do not say.

The politician has his eye on the next election, instead of the nations welfare. And I fear most preachers are more politician than prophet. They are more interested in your approval than your soul. They have their eyes on denominational promotion, the next rung of the ladder, a higher seat in the synagogue, and being called a rabbi.

The prophet has no axe to grind, but lays the axe of holy scripture to the root of every tree in the groves of the worlds idolatry. He does not know the meaning of the word compromise. His subject never varies. He relentlessly calls rebels to surrender, demanding utter surrender to the claims of Christ, the crucified, risen, exalted Lord. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! All flesh is grass! Behold, your God! Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!

As far as Gods prophet is concerned, the grass is no greener in the next pasture. He seeks no mans office, position or honour. His concern is for the will, and glory, and truth, and kingdom of God.

Churches today are looking for scholars, specialists, socialisers and showmen. We need some seers, some prophets who, like Isaiah, have seen God in his holiness, themselves in their sinfulness, and the crucified Lamb of God in the midst of his throne.

The prophet does not pack the house, or produce impressive statistics. He may get but poor response; but whether they hear or not, those who hear him know that a prophet has been among them. People do not crowd churches to hear prophets. In an age of ear-itch religionists, most everyone calls Gods prophets troublers of Israel. And wherever a prophets voice is heard, trouble, of one kind or another, is sure to follow. Whenever John the Baptist or the Apostle Paul came to town, whether they preached in the church-house, the jail-house, or the open fields, either a revival or a riot broke out. No one ignores a prophet!

The prophet is never popular with the Pharisees, and has no desire to be. Organized religion is never more organized than when it attempts to silence a prophet. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? Ye are the children of them that killed the prophets. So said the greatest of prophets to the Pharisees of his day. From Abel to Zacharias, our Master said, prophets have been stoned while living and honoured when dead. Let no one be misled by the monuments men build to dead prophets. They are only the gestures and attempts of one generation to cover up the crimes of their fathers in preceding generations.

The prophet is not popular at home. In all four gospels we read our Lords declaration, A prophet is not without honour save in his own country and in his own house. But prophets do have their reward, and so do those who befriend them, even with a cup of cool water. God will not overlook the prophets chamber, where his unpopular servant has been made to feel at home.

There are not many candidates for Elijahs mantle. His path is not an easy path to follow. There are many ways of getting rid of prophets. John the Baptists head is not brought in on a charger these days. There are smoother and more skilful ways of silencing lone dissenters like Micaiah in these days of refined malice against God. Some can even be promoted into silence. Success has stopped some mouths when persecution failed.

Like John the Baptist, the prophet is out to pull down the high places, build up low places, and make a way for the Lord. His theological interpretation of holy scripture is not a matter of learned speculation, but of passionate conviction. His preaching is not intended to make sinners feel good about themselves, but to bring them down in the dust before God by the burning, penetrating application of his Word to their hearts. Others may comfort when afflicted; but the prophet afflicts the comfortable. We are trying to accomplish now by pep, publicity, propaganda and promotion what once was done by preaching. The woods are full of trained religious personnel, (they are called preachers!); but we need prophets, men in whom the Word of the Lord burns like fire, men who carry and are weighed down with the burden of the Word of the Lord!

Any young Elisha in line for Elijahs mantle will need the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child and the hide of a rhinoceros. He may irk those who like to preserve the status quo, for he is a disturber of Israel, but no one else can take his place. Oh, may God raise up some prophets in our midst in this dark, dark day!

Perhaps he will cause some Samuel to read these lines long after my name is forgotten among men, who will hear what the Lord says and who will speak what he hears. There is not much prospect as to pay, promotion or prestige. But there has always been yet one man who will scorn the hatred of Ahab and seek the honour of God.

Luk 3:1-6 describes the making of such a man, the making of a prophet. Prophets are made, called, gifted, raised up and sent forth by God, at the time and in the place where they are needed, to prepare the way of the Lord!

Desperately Needed

God raises up a prophet when a prophet is desperately needed. I cannot think of a time in scripture when God raised up a prophet to twiddle his thumbs, sipping tea with old ladies, coaching little league ball teams, or running businesses. Gods prophets are raised up to meet the crying need of his people in the hour of desperate need, with evil abounding on all sides. He raised up Moses to deliver Israel from Egyptian bondage. He sent Samuel to find his chosen king for Israel and establish him as Gods King. The Lord God called Elijah to lead Israel, while Ahab and Jezebel sought to establish idolatry. He sent Isaiah to proclaim his salvation, when all hope seemed to be gone. And he raised up Jeremiah to prepare the people for judgment.

In a time of desperate need the God of Glory raised up John the Baptist, as a mighty Elijah, to prepare the way of the Lord. Luk 3:1-2 tell us that John the Baptist was sent into the world at a time of abounding social, political and spiritual wickedness.

Who can imagine a time more infamously evil than the days of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod and his brother, Philip? These men made our modern Washington crowd look like a bunch of Augustinian monks! When John the Baptist came preaching the gospel, the world seemed to be given over completely into the hands of the wicked. As Job put it, The earth is given into the hand of the wicked (Job 9:24). If these men were the rulers of the world, what must the people have been like?

The religious world was in just as sad a condition as the political world. In fact, religion was so degenerate, even among the Jews, that it was just a reflection of the world. Instead of converting the world, the world had converted the church. Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests.

The Word of God specifically stated that there was to be but one high priest; but the Word of God was no longer in vogue. It was irrelevant as far as the religion of the age was concerned. The church, the priests, the preachers, the religious leaders of the age did everything, gauged everything, made every judgment, and formed every doctrinal statement by opinion polls, by the opinions of a godless, reprobate people!

We must never be in despair regarding the truth of God and the cause of God in this world, no matter how bleak things may appear. Let us never allow the wickedness of the age in which we live deter us from the work God has given us. He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap (Ecc 11:4). What God has done in the past, he can do again. When darkness abounds, it is only a good background upon which God may be pleased to show forth his blazing glory in Christ!

Distinctly Called

A prophet is a man distinctly called of God. The word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias in the wilderness (Luk 3:2). A message from heaven came upon his heart, seized his soul, captivated his mind and took over his life. I do not know how to put my finger on it, but I know this: No man has any business engaging in the work of the ministry who has not been called of God to the work. He who runs without being sent, has no message to deliver, no work to do, no mandate to accomplish. But when a man is called of God, he knows exactly what he must do. He knows exactly what his message is. And he goes about his work with the tenacity of a mule and the courage of a lion.

If a man is called of God to this great and glorious, heart-rending work, he knows the Word of the Lord, the message of the gospel. He is gifted of God to preach the gospel, apt to teach. Such a man does not have to look for a place to preach, or promote himself in any way. God puts him in the work. John was in the wilderness when the word of the Lord came to him. If a man is called of God, God gives him a hearing; and he is engaged in the work. This call of God separates the man called and gifted of God unto the work of the gospel (Rom 1:1-4). No man is called of God to preach the gospel who is not preaching the gospel.

Clear Message

Gods prophet is a man with a message, a clear, distinct message from God, demanding the surrender of rebels to the throne of the great King! And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins (Luk 3:3). The baptism of repentance (believers immersion) is the gospel ordinance by which believing sinners are commanded and delight to confess their faith in Christ (Act 2:38; Act 8:36; Act 10:48; Act 22:16). In the ordinance of baptism we symbolize the finished work of our Lord Jesus, our death, burial and resurrection with him as our Substitute.

The words, for the remission of sins, should be read, because of the remission of sins. We are not baptized to have our sins remitted. We are baptized because Christ has put away our sins by the sacrifice of himself. Baptism is the believers declaration that he has been turned to God by Christ Jesus. John came preaching repentance, the turning of sinners to God by the Saviour; the very same message gospel preachers in every age are sent to proclaim, redemption accomplished by the crucified Saviour (2Co 5:17-21).

Gods prophet is a man who knows who he is and what he must do. He is just a voice. It is his business to prepare the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight.

As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth (Luk 3:4-5).

Every gospel preacher is sent of God to tell eternity bound sinners that they must prepare to meet God, to tell them by what path God comes to them and by what path they must come to him, and to declare it plainly. It is the business of Gods ambassador to your soul, as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, to fill up every valley, pull down every barrier, make every crooked thing straight and every rough thing smooth, which stands between your soul and your God.

Gods prophet is a man who goes about his work with the confidence of absolute success. We know that our work is not in vain in the Lord. We know that Gods Word will not return to him void. It will accomplish that which he pleased. It will prosper in the thing to which he sends it. And when our work is done All flesh shall see the salvation of God (Luk 3:6). You will see Gods salvation, either as a believer or as a rebel; but see it you will, either to the saving of your soul or to the damning of your soul (2Co 2:14-16). You will acknowledge and confess the salvation of God, either in the blessed experience of repentance, or in the horrifying experience of everlasting torment.

Prepare to meet thy God. Are you, or are you not prepared to meet God? Are you washed in the blood of his dear Son? Are you robed in his righteousness? Do you have on the wedding garment of his grace? Are you prepared to meet God?

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

Herod

Also Luk 3:19; Mat 14:1 (See Scofield “Mat 14:1”)

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

am 4030, ad 26

Tiberius Caesar: Luk 2:1

Pontius Pilate: Luk 23:1-4, Luk 23:24, Gen 49:10, Act 4:27, Act 23:26, Act 24:27, Act 26:30

Herod: Luk 3:19, Luk 9:7, Luk 23:6-11

his: Mat 14:3, Mar 6:17

Ituraea: Ituraea was a province of Syria east of Jordan, now called Djedour, according to Burckhardt, and comprising all the flat country south of Djebel Kessoue as far as Nowa, east of Djebel el Sheikh, or mount Hermon, and west of the Hadj road. Trachonitis, according to Strabo and Ptolemy, comprehended all the uneven country on the east of Auranitis, now Haouran, from near Damascus to Bozra, now called El Ledja and Djebel Haouran. Abilene was a district in the valley of Lebanon, so called from Abila its chief town, eighteen miles n of Damascus, according to Antoninus.

Reciprocal: Mat 3:1 – those Mat 14:1 – Tetrarch Mar 6:14 – king Herod Mar 11:30 – General Luk 2:2 – governor Luk 20:24 – Caesar’s Luk 23:7 – Herod’s Act 1:22 – Beginning Act 11:28 – Claudius Act 13:1 – Herod Act 18:25 – knowing Act 19:3 – Unto John’s Act 23:24 – the governor

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE WORD OF GOD

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Csar the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

Luk 3:1-2

Jewish religionism, as expressed in its decadent representatives, had opportunity afterwards of expressing what they thought of John, and a Herod killed him. And yet here with John in the desert, and not there with the great ones of the earth, was the word of power and the centre of interest for the worlds progress at the time.

I. To whom the message came.Why are we asked to believe that God should have singled out a nation so peculiarly unattractive in their history as the Jews would seem to have been to be His own chosen people? Yet so it is. He who most is disposed to cavil at the Divine estimate of the worlds history, as set forth in the Holy Scriptures, must feel that the Jew is a present problem which cannot be explained off-hand. Clearly he has had a past; it is difficult to believe that he has not a futurethe wanderer of the nations; indispensable to all, yet cruelly persecuted and oppressed; thriving, yet never prosperous as a nation. We surely do not make enough in our modern perplexities of the strange and unique phenomenon of this nation to whom we believe that the Word of God came, which bears witness in its decay to the loss of a privilege whose very memory is a tradition of power. The great nations of the world had their opportunities and lost them; the Jews had their opportunity and lost it. It is our turn to-day. What are we going to do with our Imperial responsibility? There it is: Tiberius Csar sits on his throne; we are shouting ourselves hoarse with our grandiloquent cries, we think imperially, we are trying to act imperially; we open the map with pride if red means the extent of the British Empire, we close it with shame if it means the extent of the Empire of Jesus Christ. There are our procurators and representatives in all parts of the world, ready to uphold the honour of the British flag, but not quite so sure of what they ought to do with the Cross of Jesus Christ, and very Pilates in their keen scrutiny of the political trend of religious enterprise. There are our dependentsthe different Herods which rule by our means, to whom we exhibit too often a civilisation barely tinged with Christian responsibility, and who, in imitating European manners, find them largely composed of European vices. There are our alliesperhaps in some ways more religious than ourselveswhom we leave to societies and amateurs if they wish to study the religious sources of our strength, while we give them of our best instruction in everything else which has to do with the construction or defence of our material empire. Annas and Caiaphas are not wanting, rival religious agencies, rival religious claims strive with each other in deadly theological contest, until perplexity merges into disgust, and disgust into opposition, and the Word of God passes on its way, leaving those channels which have choked and polluted it.

II. The message.Progress, not retrenchment, was in the mind of kings; an ever-widening luxury and aggrandisement for the future, not a mournful looking into the past. We cannot imagine repentance as a word in the vocabularies of Tiberius or Herod, or any way of the Lord other than their own way. If Domitian could not blush, certainly a Herod would know and care little about his past misdeeds. Even religion had twisted and turned Gods revelation, putting bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter, perverting promises and minimising judgments. A Messiah reigning on the throne of David, an earthly kingdom and freedom from the Roman yokethus they brooded and plotted, and the day of the Lord was to them darkness. And every age has a tendency to magnify its own importance, to proclaim its own millennium, and shout aloud its proud message, until the voice of God is driven away into quiet corners where they can only hear it who have ears to hear, the ready heart, and the humble mind. Is not there a strange discrepancy between the important things as the world counts importance and the important things according to the mind of God? And here stands John the son of Zacharias. Here stands the Church, saying, O soul, you were made for God. Seek Him, He is your rest. You were made for happiness, it is here. You are the son of God, here is He Who became Incarnate for you. Joy is the never-ceasing message which God proclaims to youheaven here, and heaven hereafter, in the satisfaction of every longing, in the gratification of all true aspirations.

III. We should do well not to turn a deaf ear to the appeal of special seasons for quiet, for times of earnest and serious thought, for a resolute facing of some of these great questions which concern time and eternity. To many a man the hour of death is his first really quiet time, and alone with his own soul he hardly knows it, its powers, and its needs, and its strong vitality. Gradually he has been driven in, as outwork after outwork is taken; he can no longer take his exercise or follow his all-absorbing sports and games. His acquaintances have gone away from the falling house, and his friends are few, and they gradually drop off; insensibly he is pressed in upon himself, until he finds himself alone with his artificial life fallen from him and face to face with God. Surely we ought to make more of the quiet times of our life. Our Lord has bid us with His own lips to enter into our closet and shut the door and pray to our Father which is in secret. In prayer, if it be only for a short time each day, we can stand face to face with eternal verities, and deal with things that really signify, and talk to Him Who links the past, the present, and the future in one.

Rev. Canon Newbolt.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

THE COMMENCEMENT of Johns ministry is very fully dated in the opening two verses. They show that things were entirely out of course, government was vested in the Gentiles, and even in Israel things were in confusion, for there were two high priests instead of one. Hence repentance was the dominant note in his preaching. Earlier prophets had reasoned with Israel and recalled them to the broken law. John no longer does this, but demands repentance. They were to acknowledge that they were hopelessly lost on the ground of the law, and take their place as dead men in the waters of his baptism. It was the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. If they listened to John and repented, they were morally prepared to receive the remission of sins through the One who was about to come. Thus the path before the Lord would be made straight.

Note how this quotation from Isaiah speaks of Jehovah coming, and how this coming of Jehovah is obviously fulfilled in Jesus. Verse Luk 3:5 states the same truth as we had in verses 52 and 53 of Luk 1:1-80, and verse Luk 3:34 of Luk 2:1-52, only putting it into language of a more figurative sort. Verse Luk 3:6 shows that since He who was about to come was One no less than Jehovah, the salvation He would bring was not to be confined within the narrow boundaries of Israel, but go forth to all flesh. Grace was about to come, and it would overflow in all directions. This grace is one of the special themes of the Gospel of Luke.

But John not only preached repentance in a general way, he also made it a very pointed and personal matter. Crowds flocked to him, and his baptism threatened to become a popular service, almost a fashionable recreation. Things work in just the same way today: any religious ordinance, such as baptism, very easily degenerates into a kind of popular festival. Evidently John was not in the least afraid of offending his audience and spoiling his own popularity. Nothing could be more vigorous than his words recorded in verses Luk 3:7-9. He told the people what they were very plainly; he warned them of wrath ahead; he called for the genuine repentance which would bring forth fruits; he showed that no place of religious privilege would avail them, for God was about to judge the very roots of things. The axe was now about to cut, not in the way of lopping off branches but of smiting at the root so as to bring down the whole tree. A very graphic figure, this; and fulfilled not in the execution of outward judgment, such as will mark the Second Advent, but in that moral judgment which was reached at the cross. The Second Advent will be characterized by the fire which will consume the dead tree: the First Advent led to the cross, where the judicial sentence of condemnation was promulgated against Adam and his race; or in other words, the tree was cut down.

John demanded deeds, not words, as the practical fruits of repentance, and this led to the peoples question, recorded in verse Luk 3:10. The publicans and the soldiers followed with similar questions. By his answers in each case John put his finger upon the particular sins that marked the different classes. Yet, though the answers varied, we can see that covetousness provoked all the wrongs that he dealt with. Of all the evil weeds that flourish in the human heart covetousness is about the most deep-seated and difficult to deal with: like the dandelion its roots penetrate to a great depth. True repentance leads to true conversion from the old way of sin, and John knew this.

Thus John prepared the way of the Lord, and not only so he also faithfully pointed to Him, and did not for one moment permit the people to think great things of himself. He proclaimed himself to be but the humblest servant of the great Person who was coming-so humble as to be unworthy to perform the very menial service of unlacing His sandal. The Coming One was so great that He would baptize men with the Holy Ghost and with fire: the former for blessing, and the latter for judgment, as the next verse makes abundantly plain. Here again we may notice that the two Advents are not as yet quite plainly distinguished. There was a baptism of the Spirit, recorded in Act 2:1-47, as the result of the First Advent, but the baptism with fire, according to verse Luk 3:17, awaits the Second Advent.

Luke records Johns faithful ministry and then briefly dismisses him from the record in order to make way for Jesus. The imprisonment of John did not take place just at this juncture, but Luke deviates from the historical order to set the thing before us in a moral and spiritual way. The Elijah-like ministry of John disappears before the One who was to be the vessel of the grace of God; and who was baptized, and thus introduced to His ministry. We are not even told here that it was John who baptized Him, but we are told that He was praying when baptized, a thing not mentioned elsewhere. This Gospel evidently emphasizes the perfection of our Lords humanity. Grace for man is vested in One who is the perfect Man, and the very first feature of perfection in man is that of dependence upon God. Prayer is an expression of that dependence, and we shall notice in this Gospel how many times it is put on record that Jesus prayed. This is the first instance.

On this praying and dependent Man the Holy Ghost descended in bodily shape like a dove, while the Fathers voice declared Him to be the beloved Son, the Object of all the Divine delight. Thus at last the truth of the Trinity became manifest. The Spirit became for a moment visible; the Father became audible; the Son was here in flesh and blood, and consequently not only visible and audible but tangible also. It is very wonderful that the heaven should be opened, and all its attention focused upon a praying Man on earth. But in that praying Man God was to be known, for it was pleasing that in Him should all fulness dwell (Col 1:19).

The Fathers voice having thus owned Him as the beloved Son, Luke now introduces His genealogy through Mary to show how really He is also Man. Matthew traces His descent down from Abraham, the depository of promise, and David, the depository of royalty. Luke traces Him up to Adam and to God, for it is simply His Manhood that is the point, and that was through Mary, for Joseph was only supposed to be His father. He is truly a Man though the Son of God. He is the Second Man, the Lord from heaven, the One overflowing with the grace of God.

Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary

John the Forerunner

Luk 3:1-18

INTRODUCTORY WORDS

I. CHRIST’S TESTIMONY TO JOHN

Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John, “What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. But what went ye out for to see? A Prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a Prophet.”

After this the Lord said, “Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.”

Whatever we may think of John, the Lord Jesus placed him as a peer among Prophets, and a master among men. John came upon the scene and then passed away following a brief ministry; and yet he held a most vital and important part as the messenger of Jehovah, sent before His face to prepare the way before Him.

We wonder how many of us will ever receive such a keen commendation from the Lord Jesus as that which John received? We are living with opportunities for service. Are we buying them up?

II. WHAT JOHN SAID OF JESUS

If John was a God-sent witness, let us weigh what he said about Christ.

1. John bare witness saying: “This was He of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for He was before me.” This statement which we have just quoted from Joh 1:15 is also made again in Joh 1:27, and once more in Joh 1:30. Three times John, therefore, bare witness that Christ was before him, and that He was preferred before him.

We all know that John was six months the senior of Christ so far as his birth was concerned. What then does he mean when he says that Christ was before him? He meant just what Christ meant when Christ said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He meant just what the Prophet meant of Jehovah when he said, “Yea, before the day was I am He.” John proclaimed the eternity of Jesus Christ. John taught that Jesus Christ lived before He was born of the Virgin, that He had, therefore, come down from the Father.

2. This is the witness of John: “When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.”

Then they asked him, “Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that Prophet? And he answered, No.”

After this John plainly declared, saying, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as saith the Prophet Esaias.”

3. John bare witness of Christ, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Again John bare record, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from Heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him.” Then John bare record, “That this is the Son of God.”

Whatever we may think of John, we know what he thought of Christ. For our part we believe that only they who accord to Christ the Deity, and the saving power which John accorded to Him, are indeed the children of God.

I. A PREACHER WITH A COMMANDED MINISTRY (Luk 3:2)

Our Scripture says, “The Word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.” This sounds very much like the commission given to other Prophets (Joe 1:1; Hos 1:1; Oba 1:1; Mar 1:1; Zep 1:1).

With these references before us, we cannot but feel that John, like other Prophets, was a man sent of God.

1. John was sent under a special call. There are some people who seem to feel that the days of the special call to the ministry have passed. We are not one of them. We believe that God still lays His hand upon those whom He would send forth with His message.

2. John was sent to a special service. He was a forerunner appointed to go before the face of the Lord to prepare His way. The Lord is still sending special men to special fields. He is still walking in the midst of the golden candlesticks placing them where He wishes them to shine forth His truth.

3. John was sent to a special people. John’s ministry was pre-eminently to Israel. God wants one man to preach at home, and another to preach abroad. He wants one man to be a pastor, and another a prophet; one to be an evangelist, and another to be a teacher. Everything in the life of God’s children is pre-arranged of God. Our greatest task is the discovery of our special mission.

II. A PLAIN PREACHER WITH A POINTED MESSAGE (Luk 3:3-7)

1. A plain preacher with a pointed message. John never spoke with fawning flattery, applauding the guilty. He came out plainly and positively calling white, white; and black, black. John knew what sin was in man. To the multitude who sought his baptism he said, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” We need, today, a little more of the John type of preaching. It is all right to love everybody, but our love should not cover their sins. Our Lord Jesus loved as no one ever loved, and yet He used almost John’s words when He said to the scribes and Pharisees, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”

2. A plain preacher with a message of repentance. John came preaching the baptism of repentance. John said, “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance.”

The message of repentance has fallen into disrepute in some circles. There are those who proclaim that there is no place for repentance and its proclamation save among the children of God. We wish to note several things:

(1) Peter, at Pentecost said, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ.”

(2) Following Pentecost, Peter cried, saying, “Repent ye therefore * * that your sins may be blotted out.”

(3) Peter said to Simon the sorcerer, “Repent therefore of this thy wickedness.”

(4) At Athens the Apostle cried, “God * * now commandeth all men every where to repent.”

(5) In speaking to Agrippa, Paul said, that he had showed both Jews and Gentile, “that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.”

(6) In Rom 2:4 we read, “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.”

(7) In 2Pe 3:9 we find “that all should come to repentance.”

For our part we see no place where the message of repentance should be omitted.

III. A PREACHER WHO BECAME THE FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY (Luk 3:4)

We now come to a very vital consideration. Long before John ever saw the light, Isaiah, the Prophet had written of him, saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.”

1. The birth of John gave proof to the certainty of the prophetic Scriptures. How marvelous it was that when John was born, his father, Zacharias, was filled with the Holy Ghost and began to say, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the House of His servant David; as He spake by the mouth of the Holy Prophets, which have been since the world began.” Thus Jesus Christ was proclaimed by Zacharias as the fulfilment of all the Prophets. Then, concerning his own son John, who had just been born, Zacharias continued, “And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways.” In this Zacharias quoted the Prophet Isaiah, and claimed the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words.

2. The birth of John gave proof to the fact that God works out beforehand the wonders of His will and word and work. Before ever John began to cry in the wilderness, God saw him there. The very testimony of John as well as his ministry was all outlined by the Lord, ahead of time.

It makes life more vital, when, as children of God we begin to realize that our testimony is filling in the plan and the purpose of the eternal God. If we fail God, God must either fail, or else put someone else in our place. Of course, God foreknew just where we would fail, and to be forewarned was to be forearmed. This, however, should make us none the less diligent to fulfill all the will of God.

IV. A PREACHER CONNECTED WITH A FAR-FLUNG VISION (Luk 3:5-6)

The Scripture which we have just read did not meet its fulfilment in the days of John. We have, therefore, but one conclusion, that John in some vital way must have been connected with that wonderful hour of the Lord’s Return, when the Scriptures just read will meet their fulfilment.

1. The words of our Scripture anticipate the day of Christ’s return. When we go to the Old Testament we find that the very prophecy spoken here in connection with John, is also placed at the time of the Lord’s Return. It is then, and only then, when the Lord will judge among the nations, and rebuke many people, not till then will the earth “be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”

It is only when the Lord returns, that the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shalt be bowed down; and the Lord shall be exalted.

It is when the Lord comes that every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth. Then, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as a rose; then, the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then, the tongue of the dumb shall sing, and the lame shall leap as an hart.

2. The words of our Scripture bring before our mind the connection of John the Baptist to Elijah. Malachi speaks thus, “Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His Temple.” It was of this that the rulers of the Jews spoke when they asked John, “Art thou that Prophet?” John had come in the spirit and the power of Elijah, but he was not Elijah.

As John was the forerunner of the First Coming, so shall Elijah be the forerunner of the Second Coming. John’s prophecy and ministry was suddenly cut off; first, he lay in prison, and then was he beheaded by Herod. His work will be continued, as Elijah steps on the scene announcing the Lord’s return to Israel.

V. A PREACHER PROCLAIMING JUDGMENT AND DEMANDING RIGHTEOUSNESS (Luk 3:9-14)

1. The proclamation of judgment. John plainly said, “Now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”

We believe that a similar message of judgment is needed today. We have a ministry which we fear is failing to show the wrath of God against sin. The Lord Jesus Christ, in His ministry, did not refrain from preaching on hell and torment. The truth is, the One who said, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”; also said, “Broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.”

The One who said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink”; also said, “Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto Heaven, shall be brought down to hell.”

The One who said, “How often would I have gathered thy children together”; also said, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”

John the Baptist was not ashamed to preach concerning the fiery judgments which awaited the ungodly.

The Lord Jesus was not ashamed to say that the unprofitable servant should be cast into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

2. The proclamation of righteousness. John demanded of the publicans that they exact no more than that which was appointed. He demanded of the soldiers saying, “Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.” He told the people that he who had two coats should impart to him that had none. We need to emphasize practical Christian living. Grace is never a license to licentiousness. The love of God gives no liberty to commit lewdness.

The believer is a child of light, and he should walk no longer in darkness. God’s message is the same throughout the whole Bible-“Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.”

VI. A PREACHER WHO PREACHED BAPTISM IN ANTICIPATION OF ONE ABOUT TO COME (Luk 3:16-17)

As John baptized he prophesied saying; “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.”

1. We think it worth while, in this study, to emphasize that we also should baptize, proclaiming the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and anticipating the resurrection of the dead in Christ.

The baptizer with water announced that the Coming One was mightier than he. He even said that he was not worthy to unloose the latchet of His shoes. No matter how signal our service may be, nor how much we may be in the public eye, we, as ministers, must always remember our utter nothingness, as compared to our Lord Jesus Christ. We are, indeed, but the voice of one crying in the wilderness; we are no more than the finger that points to the open sky, where Christ the Lord of all sits clothed with authority and power.

The baptizer with water announced that Christ would baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Those of us who speak of the blessings of Pentecost, forget, sometimes, that Pentecost carried with it tremendous judgments from on high.

2. We think it worth while to emphasize that John himself was baptizing a baptism unto repentance.

Before John was willing to baptize he demanded fruits worthy of repentance. He recognized that the people boasted their religious heritage, saying: “We have Abraham to our father”: and yet he said unto them,-“Now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore, which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”

The church may learn a valuable lesson just here. We, too, need to demand works meet for repentance, before we baptize unto repentance. Lest some should argue that our baptism is not unto repentance, we will change the form of our sentence, and say, we need to demand fruits worthy of the resurrection life, before we baptize people into the likeness of Christ’s death and resurrection.

John insisted that baptism meant something. It was not, to him, a mere denominational formality.

We, too, should insist that baptism is more than a mere church ordinance by which people, supposedly, are initiated into the church.

AN ILLUSTRATION

We have heard today of how John demanded righteousness and preached repentance.

Along this line we remember how the Prophet wrote, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

This verse, in Isa 55:1-13, has been called “The Wicket Gate” through which one must pass from the sorrows and sighs of the first verses of the chapter, into the joy and rejoicings of the last verses of the chapter.

The chapter opens with the cry, “Ho, every one that thirsteth!” The people are thirsty. The chapter continues with the plea, “Come ye, buy, and eat.” The people are hungry.

They pass now through the Wicket Gate, forsaking their way and their thoughts, with the blessed result that their hunger and thirst is gone, and they now go forth with joy, and are led forth with peace. Even the mountains and the hills break forth before them with singing, and the trees clap their hands.

The above is one of the most beautiful illustrations the Bible affords of the result of leaving sin and seeking the Saviour.

Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water

1

According to some facts of history it would seem that the.fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar is too late for the other things mentioned in this verse. The difficulty is made clear by a statement in Webster’s Ancient History, page 447. “Of the successors of Augustus, the first, and by far the ablest, was his stepson, Tiberius. His merits as a soldier and administrator were well known to Augustus, who, even during his own lifetime, granted Tiberius a share in the government.” The fifteen years of Tiberius mentioned by Luke includes the three years he reigned jointly with Augustus.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

THESE verses describe the beginning of the Gospel of Christ. It began with the preaching of John the Baptist. The Jews could never say, that when Messiah came, He came without notice or preparation. He graciously sent a mighty forerunner before His face, by whose ministry the attention of the whole nation was awakened.

Let us notice first, in this passage, the wickedness of the times when Christ’s Gospel was brought into the world. The opening verses of the chapter tell us the names of some who were rulers and governors in the earth, when the ministry of John the Baptist began. It is a melancholy list, and full of instruction. There is hardly a name in it which is not infamous for wickedness. Tiberius, and Pontius Pilate, and Herod, and his brother, and Annas, and Caiaphas, were men of whom we know little or nothing but evil. The earth seemed given into the hands of the wicked. (Job 9:24.) When such were the rulers, what must the people have been?-Such was the state of things when Christ’s forerunner was commissioned to begin preaching. Such were the times when the first foundation of Christ’s church was brought out and laid. We may truly say, that God’s ways are not our ways.

Let us learn never to despair about the cause of God’s truth, however black and unfavorable its prospects may appear. At the very time when things seem hopeless, God may be preparing a mighty deliverance. At the very season when Satan’s kingdom seems to be triumphing, the “little stone, cut without hands,” may be on the point of crushing it to pieces. The darkest hour of the night is often that which just precedes the day.

Let us beware of slacking our hands from any work of God, because of the wickedness of the times, or the number and power of our adversaries. “He that observeth the wind shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.” (Ecc 11:4.) Let us work on, and believe that help will come from heaven, when it is most wanted. In the very hour when a Roman emperor, and ignorant priests, seemed to have everything at their feet, the Lamb of God was about to come forth from Nazareth, and set up the beginnings of His kingdom. What He has done once, He can do again. In a moment He can turn His church’s midnight into the blaze of noon day.

Let us notice, secondly, in this passage, the account which Luke gives of the calling of John the Baptist into the ministry. We are told that “the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias.” He received a special call from God to begin preaching and baptizing. A message from heaven was sent to his heart, and under the impulse of that message, he undertook his marvelous work.

There is something in this account which throws great light on the office of all ministers of the Gospel. It is an office which no man has a right to take up, unless he has an inward call from God, as well as an outward call from man. Visions and revelations from heaven, of course we have no right to expect. Fanatical claims to special gifts of the Spirit must always be checked and discouraged. But an inward call a man must have, before he puts his hand to the work of the ministry. The word of God must “come to him,” as really and truly as it came to John the Baptist, before he undertakes to “come to the word.” In short, he must be able to profess with a good conscience, that he is “inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost” to take upon him the office of a minister. The man who cannot say this, when he comes forward to be ordained, is committing a great sin, and running without being sent.

Let it be a part of our daily prayers, that our churches may have no ministers excepting those who are really called of God. An unconverted minister is an injury and burden to a church. How can a man speak of truths which he has never tasted? How can he testify of a Savior whom he has never seen by faith, and never laid hold on for his own soul? The pastor after God’s own heart, is a man to whom the Word of God has come. He runs confidently, because he has tidings. He speaks boldly, because he has been sent.

Let us notice, lastly, in this passage, the close connection between true repentance and forgiveness. We are told that John the Baptist came “preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” The plain meaning of this expression is, that John preached the necessity of being baptized, in token of repentance, and that he told his hearers that except they repented of sin, their sins would not be forgiven.

We must carefully bear in mind that no repentance can make atonement for sin. The blood of Christ, and nothing else, can wash away sin from man’s soul. No quantity of repentance can ever justify us in the sight of God. “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings.” It is of the utmost importance to understand this clearly. The trouble that men bring upon their souls, by misunderstanding this subject, is more than can be expressed.

But while we say all this, we must carefully remember that without repentance no soul was ever yet saved. We must know our sins, mourn over them, forsake them, abhor them, or else we shall never enter the kingdom of heaven. There is nothing meritorious in this. It forms no part whatever of the price of our redemption. Our salvation is all of grace, from first to last. But the great fact still remains, that saved souls are always penitent souls, and that saving faith in Christ, and true repentance toward God, are never found asunder. This is a mighty truth, and one that ought never to be forgotten.

Do we ourselves repent? This, after all, is the question which most nearly concerns us. Have we been convinced of sin by the Holy Ghost? Have we fled to Jesus for deliverance from the wrath to come? Do we know anything of a broken and contrite heart, and a thorough hatred of sin? Can we say, “I repent,” as well as “I believe”? If not, let us not delude our minds with the idea that our sins are yet forgiven. It is written, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” (Luk 13:3.)

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Notes-

v1.-[Ituraea, Trachonitis, Abilene.] These were districts lying to the north and north-east of Palestine.

v2.-[Annas and Caiaphas being high priests.] We know, from the Bible, that there could not, properly speaking, be two high priests at the same time. The office, in the best days of Israel, was held by one man, and held for life. But in the time of our Lord’s earthly ministry there seems to have been much irregularity connected with the high priest’s office, and the Romans probably deposed some from it for political reasons. The result was that there were frequently others beside the actual high priest still living, who had filled the office before. Annas was father-in-law to Caiaphas. (Joh 18:13.)

v5.-[Every valley shall be filled, &c.] These and similar expressions in this verse must certainly receive a figurative interpretation. It is no literal pulling down of mountains, or filling up of valleys, that is here meant. The sense of the prophecy evidently is, that difficulties and obstacles as great as mountains and valleys in the way of a king’s march, shall go down before the progress of the Gospel of Christ.

v6.-[All flesh shall see, &c.] This is a prophecy which is not yet fully accomplished. It is to receive its completion when the kingdom of Christ is fully set up at His second advent, and all know Him from the least to the greatest. It is one among many examples, that the prophets of the Old Testament often spoke of both advents at once. and foretold the complete victories of the second appearing of Jesus, in the same breath with the partial victories of His first appearing. Some began to “see the great salvation” as soon as the Gospel was first preached. A little flock was taken out at once. All shall finally see the salvation of God from the least to the greatest.

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Luk 3:1. Lukes accuracy appears from his naming here no less than seven official person ages, from the Roman emperor to the Jewish high-priest, or high-priests.

In the fifteenth, year of the reign of Tiberius Cesar. The stepson and successor of Augustus. The usual (and incorrect) Christian era (A. D.) coincides with the year of Rome (U. C.) 754. Augustus died Aug. 19, U. C. 767 for A. D. 14, counting U. C. 754 as A. D. 1). The fifteenth year of the sole reign of Tiberius was from August 19, U. C. 781, to the same day 782. But he was associated with Augustus as ruler, from January, 765. The expression translated: of the reign of permits us to reckon from either point Reckoning from January, 765, the fifteenth year would give from January, 779, to January, 780, as the date of Johns ministry. This date accords better with the fact that Christ was born before the death of Herod (Mat 2:19), which occurred U. C. 75. For Jesus was about thirty years of age (Luk 3:23) at the time of His baptism, which took place some time after John began to preach. The other view would give no earlier year than 781 as the beginning of St Johns ministry, and would lead to the conclusion that our Lord was thirty-two years old when He was baptized. This is possible, but not probable. We therefore hold that the year spoken of is U.C. 779-780 (A. D. 26-27). On the date of our Lords birth, see Introd. 7, 3 (1).

Pontius Pilate. Sixth governor (procurator) of Judea. He held the office from U.C. 779-789 (A.D. 26-36).

Hered. Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, and Malthace, the full brother of Archelaus (Mat 2:22), and the murderer of John the Baptist. He is frequently spoken of in the Gospels. He was tetrarch of Galilee from U. C. 750 to 792. Perea was also under his jurisdiction.

His brother Philip. Not the same as Philip, the first husband of Herodias, spoken of in Mar 6:17, and alluded to in Mat 14:3 and Luk 3:19, who was disinherited by his father and remained a private citizen. Philip the tetrarch was the son of Herod the Great and Cleopatra, a woman of Jerusalem, the fifth and last wife of Herod. He reigned from 750 to 786, and was the best of Herods sons.

The region of Iturea and Trachonitis. The northeastern part of Palestine, beyond the Sea of Galilee.

Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene, the district about the town of Abila, which was eighteen miles north of Damascus. Another person of this name ruled over a larger district in the same region about sixty years before, and was killed by Antony. All the territory ruled by that Lysanias, was assigned by Augustus to others, except Abilene, which therefore seems to have had a separate ruler. He is named by Luke alone, but a good many years afterwards the district was called Abila of Lysanias.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Subdivision 3. (Luk 3:1-38; Luk 4:1-13.)

Manifested and Sealed with the Spirit.

We have next, after eighteen years more of silence from that passover at Jerusalem, the manifestation of Christ in the midst of Israel. His forerunner, John; proclaims Him as at hand; then, after His baptism by John; He is borne witness to by the Father’s voice from heaven; is openly sealed by the Spirit of God descending in bodily form, like a dove, upon Him; lastly, He is vindicated under trial, tempted by the devil in the wilderness. In all this, Luke follows in the track of the other Synoptic Gospels; although Mark omits the details of the temptation. We shall seek to compare the three accounts as we may be enabled.

1. The first part is introductory, the voice of the Old Testament in the New, John the Baptist coming in the way of righteousness, as the Lord characterizes him, and therefore with his baptism of repentance, since the legal requirement of righteousness only brands all men as under hopeless condemnation; and repentance is but the heart-acknowledgement of this, that grace may appear in its own sovereignty. Luke is fuller in detail here than either Matthew or Mark, though he has less of austerity in the Baptist’s ways: neither his rough dress nor diet is mentioned. On the other hand the way of the Lord is more insisted on as to be prepared only by the bringing down of the mountains and the filling up of the valleys, -bringing all flesh to a common level before God, that the salvation of God may be seen by all. Thus baptism is to Jordan; the river of death, to which men’s sins bring them, and not their goodness, but to find remission.

The very description of the time shows the condition of ruin in Israel -of the people under law. Even the show of a united kingdom in Israel is gone, Herod’s being quartered -the sign of weakness being stamped upon it in the tetrarchies; and a fourth part, Judea itself, under a Roman governor. The high priesthood is divided between the two Sadducees, Arenas and Caiaphas. Judah is losing its tribal rod, and Shiloh must appear, to gather the peoples.

John’s is truly a solitary voice in a barren land. It is characteristic of Luke that what is addressed in Matthew to Pharisees and Sadducees is here to the people at large. They can no longer plead the privileges of children of Abraham. The axe is at the root of the trees; while on the other hand, God is able to raise such out of the very stones. To those who ask of him what they are to do, he prescribes no asceticism, but practical righteousness and love; while yet no claim upon God is allowed on this account. As the Lord says at an after-time, no such claim is possible for a creature: “when ye have done all say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which it was our duty to do.”

2. But John does not end with this. The people, full of expectation, are reasoning in their hearts whether this might be the Christ; and this brings him out to disclaim entirely any such pretension. He is not fit to loose the shoe-latchet of Him who comes after him. He would baptize, not with water merely, but with the Holy Spirit and fire. He would purge His threshing-floor, separating between the wheat and the chaff: the one preserved for the garner, the other to be burnt up with unquenchable fire (See notes on Matthew pp. 55, 56.)

Luke passes on with this to John’s imprisonment at the hands of Herod, and the occasion of it; the fore-runner precedes also in his suffering and death the Prince of sufferers.

3. The Father’s voice is now heard owning His beloved Son, upon whom the Spirit descends out of the opened heaven; in bodily form like a dove. He is thus now in full reality the Christ, the Anointed; the Spirit of God finding a congenial habitation in a “Second Man,” the First-born of a new family, from whom, however, the stream of blessing flows back also through the ages, so that Adam shall once more, though not as of the old creation; be the “son of God.”

(1) The meaning of the Lord’s baptism by John has been considered in Matthew. It was the pledge on His part to that other baptism unto death in which He met the need of those who as sinners took their place in death their due. In Luke alone it is noticed that He is praying; which we may thus connect with His prayer in Gethsemane, and with Heb 5:7. Thereon heaven opens, as in fact that death opened it, and the Spirit descends on Him in bodily form like a dove. The dove being the bird of sacrifice, Christ and the Spirit of Christ are One as seen in it, the First-born -man as presented by Christ in this new family -being wholly according to His mind. Thus the Voice from heaven owns Him: Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased.”

So had the angels declared God’s “good pleasure in men,” as that which the Babe of Bethlehem bore witness to and justified. “Whom He foreknew He also fore-ordained to be conformed to the image of His Son; that He might be the First-born among many brethren.”

(2) Thus a genealogy follows here traced backward, and not, as in Matthew, forward; and not to Abraham merely, as in Matthew, but to Adam. It is a genealogy, not of the King, (and so giving the legal title, the descent from David) but of the Son of man.

But what need of a genealogy in this case? If He be man; must He not be Son of man -of Adam? True; and so, as has been said, the stream runs backward. The Son of man is also the Second Man; and each link in the chain at least suggests a link of salvation. Thus the genealogy is not put in connection with His birth, but with that coming forward to be baptized of John in Jordan, which was His entrance upon His ministry of salvation; and He is then thirty years of age, the time of the commencement of Levite service.

Son of man as He is generically, Christ is no less Seed of the woman; and it is doubtless Mary’s line that is given us here. Joseph is, as husband of Mary, the son of Heli. In the Gospel of the Manhood it is as naturally Mary who would be before us, as in the Gospel of the Kingship it would be Joseph; and the respective histories conform themselves to this.

4. (1) The temptation in the wilderness follows the public testimony of God to His Son. It is founded on it: -“If Thou be the Son of God”; and necessarily follows it. This is the divine order: for it would have been dishonor to both, if God had waited to see if His Son could stand all tests before approving Him. On the other hand that approval was a challenge to the accuser, the Spirit leading Christ in the wilderness forty days, while Satan was permitted to assail Him. Fasting and hungry with the famine of those days upon Him, the devil appeals to Him, if He be the Son of God, to put forth His power and make bread of the stones which are around Him. Thus He would take Himself out of the place of dependence by using a power which had not been given to man. But the true life of man is not that which is sustained by bread but by the word of God. Obedience, dependence, communion; are its characteristics and its strength. Against one walking in such a path all the suggestions of the enemy are unavailing.

2 The second and third temptations are in reverse order in Matthew and Luke. The historical order seems to be that which is found in Matthew, the second being marked by “then” as following the first; while the third is marked as the closing one by the Lord’s “Get thee hence, Satan,” which lays bare and dismisses the tempter. Indeed the proposal here in its very nature seems to close the whole matter. Yet there must, of course, be a reason for the change in order here, and that whether we are able or not to discover it; the limit of our knowledge is not that of the word of God which He has given us.

The first answer of the Lord to Satan has shown us man in the true life of dependent obedience for which he was created. Than such a life there could be nothing freer, nothing happier, nothing nobler. Living such a life, the world was his, and all was subjected to him as the image of his Maker. Aspiring to independency he lost it all, and became, by the lusts through which he governed him, Satan’s poor drudge and bondsman. This is the empire of which the devil boasts now to the Lord; spreading it before Him in a moment, as if to dazzle Him with it. But all this authority and the glory of earth’s kingdoms he whose it now was would give Him, if He would do homage for it.

The dragon has in this way, in the book of Revelation; the heads and horns of the last world-empire: he is the spirit of it, the “prince of this world” (Rev 12:3). Later, he is giving authority to the beast, -“the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority” (Rev 13:2). His terms have been always similar, and the children of the fallen first man have been constantly repeating their father’s forfeiture of his birthright freedom.

But the Second Man is now come, the Seed of the woman, who is to bruise the serpent’s head; and the conflict is already begun in victory. The prince of this world finds nothing in Him who is here not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him. To such an one he can present no motive that has force. The strong man is bound.

(3) The temptation by the word of God itself comes last therefore: it is all that remains. He cannot be seduced from it; can it be so presented as that He should be seduced by it? We have already looked at this in Matthew, and seen how it necessarily involved the perversion of the Word, and this by the impatience for the fulfilment of it which would take it out of God’s hand instead of leaving Him to fulfil it in His own way. This impatience is only distrust, and to act upon it is to tempt the Lord our God. We are seeking an easier path than His, as if His wisdom had failed, or His power were insufficient for the difficulties of the way. Whereas to “wait on the Lord” is to “spring up with wings as eagles;” it is to “run and not be weary,” and to “walk and not faint” (Isa 40:31).

The devil has now ended all the temptation; and departs, but only “for a season.” He will return as “prince of this world” (Joh 14:30), with the men of this world behind him, to show the sad reality of that dominion over them which he has vaunted, and to gain an apparent victory which will be in the end his complete overthrow.

Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

PREPARATION FOR PUBLIC MINISTRY

MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

John the Baptists ministry is the first event here (Luk 3:1-22). Also he quotes more fully from Isaiah 40 than the preceding evangelists, and for the purpose of giving the words, all flesh shall see the salvation of God. The quotation is from the Septuagint, and is in harmony with Lukes objective towards the verses, as he distinctively shows that the grace of God in Christ is for all people who will accept it, and not for Israel only. We have met with Johns preaching in the other evangelists, but not with the allusion to the different classes (Luk 3:10-14). The baptism of Jesus by Luke and its significance, have been spoken of in Matthew 3, but Luke alone tells us that the Lord was praying as heaven was opened unto Him (Luk 3:21). Was He supplicating His Father with reference to Isaiah 62, now about to be fulfilled?

GENEALOGY OF MARY (Luk 3:23-38)

We say Mary because that is the generally accepted view of the differences between this list of names and that in Matthew. The latter gives us the genealogy of Joseph saying, Jacob begat him (Mat 1:16). In what sense, therefore, can Luke call him the son of Heli (Luk 3:23)? The answer of some is, that inasmuch as the latter does not say Heli begat Joseph the inference is that he was as husband of Mary the son-in-law of Heli, who was, like himself, a descendant of David. That he should in such a case be called of Heli is in accordance with Jewish usage (1Sa 24:16).

THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (Luk 4:1-13) is dealt with in Matthew as the supreme testing through which He, as man, must pass in preparation for His great work. The moral order of the temptations as Luke presents them is observable, corresponding to those by which Eve was seduced (Gen 3:6), and which, according to

1Jn 2:16, is a kind of general principle with Satan in dealing with humanity. Christ resisted the temptations in obedience to the Word of God. Our first parents knew the Word of God and quoted it, but did not obey it. What a contrast! Had they kept the Word it would have kept them (Psa 17:4).

Stuart referring to the moral order of the temptations as Luke gives them, calls attention to the fact that it was not the actual order in which Satan presented them and which is given by Matthew, who says the temptation on the pinnacle was the second and not the third. Of course there was a Divine reason for these differing records, and we have here evidence of the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the writing of the four Gospels. Stuart also suggests that the temptation illustrates how much may go on in the world without mans knowledge. Who saw our Lord on the pinnacle of the temple, and Satan with Him, and yet how momentous to the world was the event!

RETURN TO GALILEE (Luk 4:14-15) is notable from the fact that he did so in the power of the Spirit. The reference is to the Holy Spirit of which He was full, and by Whom, as we see in the next lesson, He was now anointed. It is instructive that all Jesus is said to have done after this anointing, was done not in the power of His natural spirit, but the Holy Spirit. What a lesson for His disciples! If he were anointed, may not we, and if He required it for service, how much more we?

QUESTIONS

1. What are the leading events in this lesson?

2. What is the significance of Lukes quotation from Isaiah?

3. What special feature is mentioned by Luke in connection with the baptism of Jesus?

4. How is the genealogy in Luke explained in comparison with Matthew?

5. What distinction is mentioned as to the order of the temptations in Matthew and Luke?

6. Can you quote Psa 17:4 from memory?

7. What practical truth is taught in the closing verses of this lesson?

Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary

The two foregoing chapters give us an account of the birth of our Saviour Christ, and of John the Baptist. The evangelist now leaving the history of our blessed Saviour for eighteen years, namely till he was thirty years old, (the Holy Ghost having thought fit to conceal that part of our Saviour’s private life from our knowledge,) he begins this chapter with a relation of the Baptist’s ministry, acquainting us with the time when, and the place where, and the doctrine which, the Baptist taught.

Observe 1. The time described when St. John began his public ministry, namely, when Tiberius was emperor, and Annas and Caiaphas high priests.

Observe 2. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, when the Jews were entirely under the power of the Romans, who set four governors over them, called Tetrarchs, so named from their ruling over a fourth part of the kingdom.

From hence the Jews might have observed, had not prejudice blinded their eyes, that the sceptre being thus departed from Judah, according to Jacob’s prophecy, Gen 49:10 Shiloh, or the Messiah was now come.

Again, the time when St. John began his ministry was when Annas and Caiaphas were high priests. Under the law there were three sorts of ministers that attended the service of the temple, namely, priests, Levites, and Nethinims; over these the high priest was chief, who by God’s command was to be the first-born of Aaron’s family.

But how came two high priests here, seeing God never appointed but one at a time?

In answer to this, say some, the power and covetousness of the Romans put in high priests at pleasure to officiate for gain.

Say others, the high priest was allowed his assistant or deputy who in case of his pollution and sickness, did officiate in his place.

But that which we may profitably observe from hence, is this, the exactness and faithfulness of this historian, St. Luke, in relating the circumstances of our Saviour’s nativity, and the Baptist’s ministry. That the truth might evidently appear, he is exact in recording the time.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Luk 3:1-2. Now in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Reckoning from the time when Augustus made him his colleague in the empire: Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea He was made governor in consequence of Archelaus being banished, and his kingdom reduced into a Roman province. See note on Mat 2:22. And Herod Namely, Herod Antipas; being tetrarch of Galilee The dominions of Herod the Great were, after his death, divided into four parts or tetrarchies: this Herod, his son, reigned over that fourth part of his dominions. His brother Philip reigned over another fourth part, namely, the region of Iturea and that of Trachonitis; (that tract of land on the other side Jordan, which had formerly belonged to the tribe of Manasseh;) and Lysanias, (probably descended from a prince of that name, who was some years before governor of that country,) was tetrarch of Abilene, which was a large city of Syria, whose territories reached to Lebanon and Damascus, and contained great numbers of Jews. Annas and Caiaphas being the high- priests By the original constitution of the Israelitish state, one only could be high-priest at one time, and the office was for life. But after the nation had fallen under the power of foreigners, great liberties were taken with the sacred office; and high-priests, though still of the pontifical family of Aaron, were put in or out arbitrarily, as suited the humour, the interest, or the political views of their rulers. And though it does not appear that they ever appointed two to officiate jointly in that station, there is some probability that the Romans about this time made the office annual, and that Annas and Caiaphas enjoyed it by turns. See Joh 11:49; Joh 18:13; Act 4:6. If this was the case, which is not unlikely; or if, as some think, the sagan, or deputy, is comprehended under the same title, we cannot justly be surprised that they should be named as colleagues by the evangelist. In any event it may have been usual, through courtesy, to continue to give the title to those who had ever enjoyed that dignity, which, when they had no king, was the greatest in the nation. Campbell. Thus the time of the public appearance of John the Baptist, the harbinger of the Messiah, is distinctly marked by Luke; for he tells us the year of the Roman emperor in which it happened, and mentions, not only the governor or procurator of Judea, and the high-priest who then officiated, but several contemporary princes who reigned in the neighbouring kingdoms. By his care, in this particular, he has fixed exactly the era of the commencement of the gospel. The word of God came unto John John, the son of Zacharias and forerunner of Jesus, was a priest by descent, and a prophet by office, (Luk 1:76.) He was surnamed the Baptist, from his baptizing his disciples; (see note on Mat 3:1;) and was foretold anciently under the name of Elijah, because he was to come in the spirit and power of that prophet. From his infancy he dwelt in the wilderness, or hill-country, with his father, till the word of God, by prophetic inspiration, or, as some think, by an audible voice from heaven, such as the prophets of old heard, and which he knew to be Gods by the majesty thereof, came to him Called him forth to enter upon the work to which he was destined before he was conceived in the womb, namely, to prepare the Jews for the reception of the Messiah.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

First Narrative: The Ministry of John the Baptist, Luk 3:1-20.

We already know from Luk 1:77 why the Messiah was to have a forerunner. A mistaken notion of salvation had taken possession of Israel. It was necessary that a man clothed with divine authority should restore it to its purity before the Messiah laboured to accomplish it. Perhaps no more stirring character is presented in sacred history than that of John the Baptist. The people are excited at his appearing; their consciences are aroused; multitudes flock to him. The entire nation is filled with solemn expectation; and just at the moment when this man has only to speak the word to make himself the centre of this entire movement, he not only refrains from saying this word, but he pronounces another. He directs all the eager glances that were fixed upon himself to One coming after him, whose sandals he is not worthy to carry. Then, as soon as his successor has appeared, he retires to the background, and gives enthusiastic expression to his joy at seeing himself eclipsed. Criticism is fertile in resources of every kind; but with this unexampled moral phenomenon to account for, it will find it difficult to give any satisfactory explanation of it, without appealing to some factor of a higher order.

Luke begins by framing the fact which he is about to relate in a general outline of the history of the time (Luk 3:1-2). He next describes the personal appearance of John the Baptist (Luk 3:3-6); he gives a summary of his preaching (Luk 3:7-18); and he finishes with an anticipatory account of his imprisonment (Luk 3:19-20).

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

P A R T S E C O N D.

BEGINNING OF THE MINISTRY OF JOHN

THE BAPTIST, THE FOREUNNER.

XVII.

JOHN THE BAPTIST’S PERSON AND PREACHING.

(In the wilderness of Juda, and on the banks of the Jordan,

occupying several months, probably A. D. 25 or 26.)

aMATT. III. 1-12; bMARK I. 1-8; cLUKE III. 1-18.

b1 The beginning of the gospel [John begins his Gospel from eternity, where the Word is found coexistent with God. Matthew begins with Jesus, the humanly generated son of Abraham and David, born in the days of Herod the king. Luke begins with the birth of John the Baptist, the Messiah’s herald; and Mark begins with the ministry of John the Baptist. While the three other evangelists take a brief survey of the preparation of the gospel, Mark looks particularly to the period when it began to be preached. Gospel means good news, and news is not news until it is proclaimed. The gospel began to be preached or proclaimed with the ministry of John the Baptist ( Luk 16:16). His ministry was the dawn of that gospel of which Christ’s preaching was the sunrise] of Jesus [Our Lord’s name as a human being; it means “Saviour”] Christ [Though this is also sometimes used as a name, it is in reality our Lord’s title. It means “the Anointed,” and is equivalent to saying that Jesus is our Prophet, Priest and King] the Son of God. [This indicates our Lord’s eternal nature; it was divine. Mark’s gospel was written to establish that fact, which is the foundation of the church ( Mat 16:18). John’s Gospel was written for a like purpose ( Joh 20:31). John uses the phrase “Son of [62] God” twenty-nine times, and Mark seven times. As these two evangelists wrote chiefly for Gentile readers, they emphasized the divinity of Jesus, and paid less attention to his Jewish ancestry. But Matthew, writing for Hebrews, prefers the title “Son of David,” which he applies to Jesus some nine times, that he may identify him as the Messiah promised in the seed of David– 2Sa 7:12, Psa 72:1-17, Psa 89:3, Psa 89:4, Psa 132:11, Psa 132:12.] c1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign [Tiberius Csar, stepson of and successor to Augustus, began to reign as joint ruler with Augustus in August, A.U.C. 765 (A.D. 11). On Aug. 19, 767, Augustus died and Tiberius became sole ruler. Luke counts from the beginning of the joint rule, and his fifteen years bring us to 779. In August, 779, Tiberius began his fifteenth year, and about December of that year Jesus would have completed his thirtieth year] of Tiberius Csar [He was born B.C. 41, died March 16, A.D. 37. As a citizen he distinguished himself as orator, soldier and public official. But as emperor he was slothful, self-indulgent, indescribably licentious, vindictive and cruel. He was a master of dissimulation and cunning, and was a veritable scourge to his people. But he still found flatterers even in Palestine, Csarea Philippi, and the town Tiberias being named for him], Pontius Pilate [see mention of him in account of our Lord’s trial] being governor of Juda [The province of Juda was subdued by Pompey and brought under Roman control in B.C. 63. Its history from that date till the governorship of Pilate can be found in Josephus], and Herod [Also called Antipas. The ruler who murdered John the Baptist and who assisted at the trial of Jesus] being tetrarch [this word means properly the ruler of a fourth part of a country, but was used loosely for any petty tributary prince] of Galilee [This province lay north of Samaria, and measured about twenty-five miles from north to south, and twenty-seven miles from east to west. It was a rich and fertile country], and his brother [half-brother] Philip [He was distinguished by justice and moderation, the one decent man in the Herodian family. He married Salome, [63] who obtained John the Baptist’s head for a dance. He built Csarea Philippi, and transformed Bethsaida Julius from a village to a city, and died there A.D. 44. After his death his domains became part of the Roman province of Syria] tetrarch of the region of Itura [A district thirty miles long by twenty-five broad, lying north of Batana, east of Mt. Hermon, west of Trachonitis. It received its name from Jetur, son of Ishmael ( Gen 25:15). Its Ishmaelite inhabitants were conquered by Aristobulus, king of Juda, B.C. 100, and forced by him to accept the Jewish faith. They were marauders, and famous for the use of the bow] and Trachonitis [A district about twenty-two miles from north to south by fourteen from east to west. Its name means “rough” or “stony,” and it amply deserves it. It lies between Itura and the desert, and has been infested with robbers from the earliest ages. It is called the Argob in the Old Testament, “an ocean of basaltic rock and boulders, tossed about in the wildest confusion, and intermingled with fissures and crevices in every direction”], and Lysanias [Profane history gives us no account of this man. It tells of a Lysanias, king of Chalcis, under Mt. Lebanon, who was put to death by Mark Antony, B.C. 36, or sixty-odd years before this, and another who was tetrarch of Abilene in the reigns of Caligula and Claudius twenty years after this. He probably was son of the first and father of the second] tetrarch of Abilene [The city of Abila (which comes from the Hebrew word “abel,” meaning “meadow”) is eighteen miles from Damascus and thirty-eight from Baalbec. The province laying about it is mentioned because it subsequently formed part of the Jewish territory, being given to Herod Agrippa I. by Emperor Claudius about A.D. 41], 2; in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas [Annas had been high priest 7-14 A.D., when he was deposed by the procurator, Gratus. Caiaphas was son-in-law of and successor to Annas. Luke gives both names, one as the rightful and the other as the acting high priest. Compare Act 4:6. Gentile innovations had made sad havoc with the Jewish law as to this office. In the last one [64] hundred and seven years of the temple’s existence there were no less than twenty-eight high priests. Luke is the only one who fixes the time when Jesus began his ministry. He locates it by emperor and governor, tetrarch and high priest, as an event of world-wide importance, and of concern to all the kingdoms of men. He conceives of it as Paul did– Act 26:26], the word of God [The divine commission which bade John enter his career as a prophet ( Jer 1:2, Eze 6:1). Prophets gave temporary and limited manifestations of God’s will ( Heb 1:1, Heb 1:2). Jesus is the everlasting and unlimited manifestation of the divine purpose and of the very Godhead– Joh 14:9, Joh 12:45, Col 1:15, Heb 1:3, 2Co 4:6] came unto John the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. [The wilderness of Juda is that almost uninhabitable mass of barren ridges extending the whole length of the Dead Sea, and a few miles further north. It is from five to ten miles wide.] a1 And in those days [Some take this expression as referring to the years when Jesus dwelt at Nazareth. But it is better to regard it as a Hebraism equivalent to “that age” or “that era” ( Exo 2:11). It contrasts the era when the Baptist lived with the era when Matthew wrote his Gospel, just as we say “in these days of enlightenment” when we wish to contrast the present time with the days of the American Revolution] cometh John [he was cousin to Jesus] the Baptist [So called because God first gave through him the ordinance of baptism. It has been erroneously thought by some that John borrowed this ordinance from the Jewish practice of proselyte baptism. This could not be, for John baptized his converts, but Jewish proselytes baptized themselves. The law required such self-baptism of all persons who were unclean ( Lev 14:9, Num 19:19, Num 8:7, Lev_1-16:34.). More than twenty distinct cases are specified in which the law required bathing or self-baptism, and it is to these Paul refers when he states that the law consisted in part “of divers baptisms” ( Heb 9:10). But the law did not require this of proselytes, and proselyte baptism was a human appendage to the divinely given Jewish [65] ritual, just as infant baptism is to the true Christian ritual. Proselyte baptism is not mentioned in history till the third century of the Christian era. Neither Josephus, nor Philo, nor the Apocrypha, nor the Targums say anything about it, though they all mention proselytes. In fact, the oldest mention of it in Jewish writings is in the Babylonian Gemara, which was completed about five hundred years years after Christ. The New Testament implies the non-existence of proselyte baptism ( Mat 21:25, Joh 1:25, Joh 1:33). John could hardly have been called the Baptist, had he used an old-time rite in the accustomed manner. The Baptist was a link between the Old and New Testament. Belonging to the Old, he announced the New], preaching [Not sermonizing, but crying out a message as a king’s herald making a proclamation, or a policeman crying “Fire!” in a slumbering town. His discourse was brief and unembellished. Its force lay in the importance of the truth announced. It promised to the Hebrew the fulfillment of two thousand years of longing. It demanded repentance, but for a new reason. The old call to repentance had wooed with the promise of earthly blessings, and warned with the threat of earthly judgments; but John’s repentance had to do with the kingdom of heaven and things eternal. It suggested the Holy Spirit as a reward, and unquenchable fire as the punishment] in the wilderness of Juda [that part of the wilderness which John chose for the scene of his ministry is a desert plain, lying along the western bank of the Jordan, between Jericho and the Dead Sea], saying, 2 Repent ye [to repent is to change the will in reference to sin, resolving to sin no more] for [John sets forth the motive for repentance. Repentance is the duty, and the approach of the kingdom is the motive inciting to it. Only by repentance could the people be prepared for the kingdom. Those who are indifferent to the obligations of an old revelation would be ill-prepared to receive a new one] the kingdom of heaven is at hand [ Dan 2:44. “Kingdom of heaven” is peculiar to Matthew, who uses it thirty-one times. He also joins with the other evangelists in calling it the kingdom of God. We know not why [66] he preferred the expression, “kingdom of heaven.”] 3 For this is he that was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, c3 And he came [he made his public appearance, and, like that of Elijah, it was a sudden one– 1Ki 17:1] into all the region about the Jordan [The Jordan valley is called in the old Testament the Arabah, and by the modern Arabs the Ghor. It is the deepest valley in the world, its lowest part being about thirteen hundred feet below the level of the ocean] preaching the baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins [as a change leading to remission or forgiveness of sins] beven c4 as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet [Isaiah flourished from about 759 to 699 B.C.], asaying, bBehold [The clause beginning with “Behold,” and ending with “way,” is taken from Mal 3:1. The Revised Version makes Mark quote this passage as if it were from Isaiah, the reading being “written in Isaiah the prophet,” but the King James’ version gives the reading “written in the prophets.” Following the reasoning of Canon Cook, we hold that the latter was the original reading–see Speaker’s Commentary, note at the end of Mark i.] I send my messenger [John the Baptist was that messenger] before thy face [Malachi says, “my face.” “Thy” and “my” are used interchangeably, because of the unity of the Deity– Joh 10:30], who shall prepare thy way [Mark says little about the prophets, but at the outset of his Gospel he calls attention to the fact that the entire pathway of Jesus was the subject of prophetical prediction]; cThe voice [ Isa 40:3, Isa 40:4, quoted from the LXX. The words were God’s, the voice was John’s. So Paul also spake ( 1Th 2:1-13). It was prophesied before he was born that John should be a preparing messenger for Christ– Luk 1:17] of one crying in the wilderness [This prophecy of Isaiah’s could relate to none but John, for no other prophet ever made the wilderness the scene of his preaching. But John always preached there, and instead of going to the people, he compelled the people to come out to him. John was the second Elijah. The claims of all who in these days profess to be reincarnations of Elijah [67] may be tested and condemned by this prophecy, for none of them frequent the wilderness], Make ye ready the way [See also Isa 35:8-10. Isaiah’s language is highly figurative. It represents a band of engineers and workmen preparing the road for their king through a rough, mountainous district. The figure was familiar to the people of the East, and nearly every generation there witnessed such road-making. The haughty Seriramis leveled the mountains before her. Josephus, describing the march of Vespasian, says that there went before him such as were to make the road even and straight, and if it were anywhere rough and hard, to smooth it over, to plane it, and to cut down woods that hindered the march, that the army might not be tired. Some have thought that Isaiah’s prophecy referred primarily to the return of the Jewish captives from Babylon. But it refers far more directly to the ministry of the Baptist; for it is not said that the way was to be prepared for the people, but for Jehovah himself. It is a beautiful figure, but the real preparation was the more beautiful transformation of repentance. By inducing repentance, John was to prepare the people to receive Jesus and his apostles, and to hearken to their preaching] of the Lord, Make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, And every mountain and hill shall be brought low; And the crooked shall become straight, And the rough way smooth [The literal meaning of this passage is expressed at Isa 2:12-17. See also Zec 4:7. Commentators give detailed application of this prophecy, and, following their example, we may regard the Pharisees and Sadducees as mountains of self-righteousness, needing to be thrown down, and thereby brought to meekness and humility; the outcasts and harlots as valleys of humiliation, needing to be exalted and filled with hope; and the publicans and soldiers as crooked and rough byways, needing to be straightened and smoothed with proper details of righteousness. But the application is general, and not to be limited to such details. However, civil tyranny, and ecclesiastical pride must be leveled, and the rights of the common people must be exalted before for kingdom of God can [68] enter in]; 6 And all flesh shall see the salvation of God [This last clause of the prophecy is added by Luke alone. He loves to dwell upon the universality of Christ’s gospel.] b4 John came, who baptized in the wilderness and preached the baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins. [Pardoning mercy was to be found in Christ, and all rites then looked forward to the cleansing effected by the shedding of his blood, as all rites now look back to it. But in popular estimation John’s baptism was no doubt regarded as consummating an immediate forgiveness] a4 Now John himself [Himself indicates that John’s manner of life differed from that of his disciples. He did not oblige them to practice the full measure of his abstinence] had his raiment of [John’s dress and food preached in harmony with his voice. His clothing and fare rendered him independent of the rich and great, so that he could more freely and plainly rebuke their sins. Calling others to repentance, he himself set an example of austere self-denial. So much so that the Pharisees said he had a demon– Mat 11:18] b6 And was clothed with acamel’s hair [Camels were plentiful in the East. Their finer hair was woven into elegant cloths; but that which was coarser and shaggier was made into a fabric like our druggets, and used for the coats of shepherds and camel-drivers, and for the covering of tents. Prophets often wore such cloth ( Zec 13:4), and no doubt it was the habitual garb of John’s prototype ( Mal 4:5), the prophet Elijah ( 2Ki 1:8). In Elijah’s day there was demand for protest against the sad havoc which Phoenician luxury and licentiousness were making with the purer morals of Israel; and in John’s day a like protest was needed against a like contamination wrought by Greek manners and customs. Both prophets, by their austerity, rebuked such apostasy, and Jezebel answered the rebuke by attempting Elijah’s life, while Herodias actually took the life of John. As a herald, John was suited to the King whose appearing he was to announce, for Jesus was meek and lowly ( Zec 9:9), and had no form nor comeliness that he should be desired– Isa 53:2], [69] and a leathern girdle about his loins [The loose skirts worn in the East required a girdle to bind them to the body. This was usually made of linen or silk, but was frequently more costly, being wrought with silver and gold. John’s girdle was plain, undressed leather]; And his food was {band did eat} alocusts [Locusts, like Western grasshoppers, were extremely plentiful ( Joe 1:4, Isa 33:4, Isa 33:5). The law declared them clean, and thus permitted the people to eat them for food ( Lev 11:22). Arabs still eat them, and in some Oriental cities they are found for sale in the market. But they are regarded as fit only for the poor. They are frequently seasoned with camel’s milk and honey] and wild honey. [Canaan was promised as a land flowing with milk and honey ( Exo 2:8-17, Exo 13:15, 1Sa 14:26). Many of the trees in the plains of Jericho, such as the palm, fig, manna, ash and tamarisk, exuded sweet gums, which went by the name of tree honey, but there is no need to suppose, as some do, that this was what John ate. The country once abounded in wild bees, and their honey was very plentiful. We have on the record an instance of the speed with which they could fill the place which they selected for their hives ( Jdg 14:5-9). The diet of the Baptist was very light, and Jesus so speaks of it ( Mat 11:18). He probably had no set time for his meals, and all days were more or less fast-days. Thus John gave himself wholly to his ministry, and became a voice–all voice. John took the wilderness for a church, and filled it. He courted no honors, but no Jew of his time received more of them, and by some he was even regarded as Messiah– Luk 3:15.] b5 And there a5 Then went out unto him ball [A hyperbole common with Hebrew writers and such as we use when we say, “the whole town turned out,” “everybody was there,” etc. Both Matthew and Luke show that some did not accept John’s baptism ( Mat 21:23-25, Luk 7:30). But from the language of the evangelist we might infer that, first and last, something like a million people may have attended John’s ministry] the country of Juda, and all they of Jerusalem; aall [70] the region round about the Jordan [The last phrase includes the entire river valley. On both sides of the river between the lake of Galilee and Jericho, there were many important cities, any one of which would be more apt to send its citizens to John’s baptism than the proud capital of Jerusalem]; 6 and they were baptized of him [Literally, immersed by him. In every stage of the Greek language this has been the unquestioned meaning of the verb baptizo, and it still retains this meaning in modern Greek. In accordance with this meaning, the Greek Church, in all its branches, has uniformly practiced immersion from the earliest period to the present time. Greek Christians never speak of other denominations as “baptizing by sprinkling,” but they say, “they baptize instead of baptizing.” John’s baptism was instituted of God ( Joh 1:33), just as Christian baptism was instituted by Christ ( Mat 28:19). The Pharisees recognized John’s rite as so important as to require divine authority, and even then they underestimated it, regarding it as a mere purification–Josephus Ant. xviii. 5, 2] in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. [As John’s baptism was for the remission of sins, it was very proper that it should be preceded by a confession. The context indicates that the confession was public and general. There is no hint of such auricular confession as is practiced by the Catholics. See also Act 19:18. John, writing to baptized Christians, bids them to confess their sins, that Jesus may forgive them ( 1Jo 1:9). Christian baptism is also for the remission of sins ( Act 2:38), the ordinance itself a very potent confession that the one baptized has sins to be remitted, and it seems to be a sufficient pubic expression of confession as to sins; for while John’s baptism called for a confession sins, Christian baptism calls only for a confession of faith in Christ– Act 22:16, Rom 10:9, Rom 10:10, Mar 16:16.] 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees [Josephus tells us that these two leading sects of the Jews started about the same time in the days of Jonathan, the high priest, or B.C. 159-144. But the sentiments which at that time divided the [71] people into two rival parties entered the minds and hearts of the Jews immediately after the return from the Babylonian captivity. These returned Jews differed as to the attitude and policy which Israel should manifest toward the neighboring heathen. Some contended for a strict separation between the Jews and all pagan peoples. These eventually formed the Pharisee party, and the name Pharisee means “the separate.” Originally these men were genuine patriots and reformers, but afterwards the majority of them became mere formalists. As theologians the Pharisees represented the orthodox party, and were followed by the vast majority of the people. They believed (1) in the resurrection of the dead; (2) a future state with rewards and punishments; (3) angels and spirits; and (4) a special providence of God carried out by angels and spirits. As a sect they are said to have numbered six thousand at the time of Herod’s death. They were the patriotic party, and the zealots were their extreme section. They covered an extremely selfish spirit with a pious formalism, and by parading their virtues they obtained an almost unbounded influence over the people. By exposing their hypocrisy, Jesus sought to destroy their power over the multitude, and incurred that bitter enmity with which they pursued him to his death. But certain other of the captives who returned from Babylon desired a freer intercourse with the pagans, and sought to break away from every restraint which debarred therefrom. These became Sadducees. They consented to no other restraint than the Scriptures themselves imposed, and they interpreted these as laxly as possible. Some take their name to means “the party of ‘righteousness,'” but more think it comes from their founder, Zadok, and is a corruption of the word Zadokite. Zadok flourished 260 B.C. His teacher, Antigonus Sochus, taught him to serve God disinterestedly–that is, without hope of reward or punishment. From his teaching Zadok inferred that there was no future state of rewards or punishment, and on this belief founded his sect. From this fundamental doctrine sprang the other tenets of the Sadducees. They denied all the four points held by the Pharisees, [72] asserting that there was no resurrection; no rewards and punishments hereafter; no angels, no spirits. They believed there was a God, but denied that he had any special supervision of human affairs ( Mat 22:23, Act 23:8). They were the materialists of that day. Considering all God’s promises as referring to this world, they looked upon poverty and distress as evidence of God’s curse. Hence to relieve the poor was to sin against God in interfering with his mode of government. Far fewer than the Pharisees, they were their rivals in power; for they were the aristocratic party, and held the high-priesthood, with all its glories. Their high political position, their great wealth, and the Roman favor which they courted by consenting to foreign rule and pagan customs, made them a body to be respected and feared] coming to his baptism, he said {ctherefore to the multitudes that went out to be baptized on him} aunto them [John spoke principally to the leaders, but his denunciation indirectly included the multitude who followed their leadership], Ye offspring of vipers [A metaphor for their likeness to vipers–as like them as if they had been begotten of them. The viper was a species of serpent from two to five feet in length, and about one inch thick. Its head is flat, and its body a yellowish color, speckled with long brown spots. It is extremely poisonous ( Act 28:6). John here uses the word figuratively, and probably borrows the figure from Isa 59:5. It means that the Jewish rulers were full of guile and malice, cunning and venom. With these words John gave them a vigorous shaking, for only thus could he hope to waken their slumbering consciences. But only one who has had a vision of “the King in his beauty,” should presume thus to address his fellow-men. The serpent is an emblem of the devil ( Gen 3:1, Rev 12:9, Rev 12:14, Rev 12:15), and Jesus not only repeated John’s words ( Mat 12:35, Mat 23:23, Mat 23:33), but he interpreted the words, and told them plainly that they were “the children of the devil” ( Joh 8:44). The Jewish rulers well deserved this name, for they poisoned the religious principles of the nation, and accomplished the crucifixion of the Son of God], who warned [73] you to flee [John’s baptism, like that of Moses at the Red Sea ( 1Co 10:2), was a way of escape from destruction, of rightly used. Christian baptism is also such a way, and whosoever will may enter thereby into the safety of the kingdom of Christ, but baptism can not be used as an easy bit of ritual to charm away evil. It must be accompanied by all the spiritual changes which the ordinance implies] from the wrath to come? [Prophecy foretold that Messiah’s times would be accompanied with wrath ( Isa 63:3-6, Dan 7:10-26); but the Jews were all of the opinion that this wrath would be meted out upon the Gentiles and were not prepared to hear John apply the prophecy to themselves. To all his hearers John preached the coming kingdom; to the impenitent, he preached the coming wrath. Thus he prepared the way for the first coming of the Messiah, and those who would prepare the people for his second coming would do well to follow his example. The Bible has a voice of warning and denunciation, as well as words of invitation and love. Whosoever omits the warning of the judgment, speaks but half the message which God would have him deliver. God’s wrath is his resentment against sin– Mat 18:34, Mat 22:7, Mar 3:5.] 8 Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance [John had demanded repentance, he now demands the fruits of it. By “fruit” or “fruits,” as Luke has it, he means the manner of life which shows a real repentance]: 9 and think not {cbegin not} [John nips their self-excuse in the bud] ato say within yourselves [speaking to your conscience to quiet it], We have Abraham to our father [The Jews thought that Messiah would rule over them as a nation, and that all Jews would, therefore, be by birthright citizens of his kingdom. They thought that descent from Abraham was all that would be necessary to bring them into that kingdom. John’s words must have been very surprising to them. The Talmud is full of expressions showing the extravagant value which Jews of a later age attached to Abrahamic descent. “Abraham,” it says, “sits next the gates of hell, and doth not permit any wicked Israelite to go [74] down into it.” Again, it represents God as saying to Abraham, “If thy children were like dead bodies without sinews or bones, thy merit would avail for them.” Again, “A single Israelite is worth more before God than all the people who have been or shall be.” Again, “The world was made for their [Israel’s] sake.” This pride was the more inexcusable because the Jews were clearly warned by their prophets that their privileges were not exclusive, and that they would by no means escape just punishment for their sins ( Jer 7:3, Jer 7:4, Mic 3:11, Isa 48:2). John repeated this message, and Jesus reiterated it ( Mat 8:11, Mat 8:12, Luk 16:23). We should note that in this preparation for the gospel a blow was struck at confidence and trust in carnal descent. Birth gives no man any privileges in the kingdom of God, for all are born outside of it, and all must be born again into it ( Joh 1:13, Joh 3:3); yet many still claim peculiar rights from Christian parentage, and infant baptism rests on this false conception. The New Testament teaches us that we are children of Abraham by faith, and not by blood; by spiritual and not carnal descent ( Rom 4:12-16, Gal 3:26, Gal 6:15, Joh 8:39). It had been better for the Jews never to have heard of Abraham, than to have thus falsely viewed the rights which they inherited from him]: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham [John meant that their being children of Abraham by natural descent gave them no more merit than children of Abraham made out of stone would have. He pointed to the stones along the bank of Jordan as he spoke.] 10 And even now the axe calso alieth at the root of the trees: every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down [The threatened cutting down means the end of the probation of each hearer, when, if found fruitless, he would be cast into the fire mentioned below], and cast into the fire. [Used as fuel.] c10 And the multitudes asked him, saying, What then must we do? [This is the cry of the awakened conscience ( Act 2:37, Act 16:30, Act 22:10). John answered it by recommending them to do the very reverse of what they [75] were doing, which, in their case, was true fruit of repentance.] 11 And he answered and said unto them, He that hath two coats [By coat is meant the tunic, or inner garment, worn next to the skin. It reached to the knees, and sometimes to the ankles, and generally had sleeves. Two tunics were a luxury in a land where thousands were too poor to own even one. Wrath was coming, and he that would obtain mercy from it must show mercy– Mat 5:7], let him impart to him that hath none [For a like precept given to Christians, see 2Co 8:13-15, Jam 2:15-17, 1Jo 3:17]; and he that hath food, let him do likewise. 12 And there came also publicans [The Roman Government did not collect its own taxes. Instead of doing so, it divided the empire into districts, and sold the privilege of collecting the taxes in these districts to certain capitalists and men of rank. The capitalists employed agents to do the actual collecting. These agents were usually natives of the districts in which they lived, and those in Palestine were called publicans. Their masters urged and encouraged them to make the most fraudulent and vexatious exactions. They systematically overcharged the people and often brought false accusation to obtain money by blackmail. These publicans were justly regarded by the Jews as apostates and traitors, and were classed with the lowest and most abandoned characters. The system was bad, but its practitioners were worse. The Greeks regarded the word “publican” as synonymous with “plunderer.” Suidas pictures the life of a publican as “unrestrained plunder, unblushing greed, unreasonable pettifogging, shameless business.” The Turks to-day collect by this Roman method. Being publicly condemned, and therefore continually kept conscious of their sin, the publicans repented more readily than the self-righteous Pharisees. Conscience is one of God’s greatest gifts, and he that destroys it must answer for it] to be baptized, and they said unto him, Teacher [The publicans, though lowest down, gave John the highest title. Self-abnegation is full of the virtue of reverence, but self-righteousness utterly lacks it], what must we do? 13 And he [76] said unto them, Extort no more than that which is appointed you. [Such was their habitual, universal sin. No man should make his calling an excuse for evil-doing.] 14 And soldiers [These soldiers were probably Jewish troops in the employ of Herod. Had they been Romans, John would doubtless have told them to worship God] also asked him, saying, And we, what must we do? And he said unto them, Extort from no man by violence [The soldiers, poorly paid, often found it convenient to extort money by intimidation. Strong in their organization, they terrified the weak and enforced gratuities by acts of violence], neither accuse any one wrongfully [John here condemns the custom of blackmailing the rich by acting as informers and false accusers against them]; and be content with your wages. [The term wages included rations and money. The soldiers were not to add to their receipts by pillage or extortion. Soldiers’ wages were about three cents a day, so they were exposed to strong temptation. Yet John did not bid them abandon their profession, and become ascetics like himself. His teachings was practical. He allowed war as an act of government. Whether Christianity sanctions it or not, is another question.] 15 And as the people were in expectation [Expecting the Christ–see Joh 1:19-28], and all men reasoned in their hearts concerning John, whether haply he were the Christ [Prophecy induced a Messianic expectation. The scepter had departed from Judah, and Csar’s deputies ruled. Tetrarchs and procurators held the whole civil government. In their hands lay the power of life and death from which only Roman citizens could appeal ( Act 25:11). The power of the Jewish courts was limited to excommunication or scourging. The seventy weeks of Daniel were now expiring, and other prophecies indicated the fullness of time. But distress, rather than prophecy, enhanced their expectation. Tiberius, the most infamous of men, governed the world. Pontius Pilate, insolent, cruel, was making life irksome and maddening the people. Herod Antipas, by a course of reckless apostasy and unbridled lust, [77] grieved even the religious sense of the hypocrite. Annas and Caiaphas, impersonators of materialism, sat in the chief seat of spiritual power. Men might well look for a deliverer, and hasten with joy to hear of a coming King. But, nevertheless, we could have no more forceful statement of the deep impression made by John’s ministry than that the people were disposed to take him for the Christ]; 16 John answered, saying unto them all, b7 And he preached, saying, a11 I indeed baptize {bbaptized} ayou in {cwith} water unto repentance [That is, unto the completion of your repentance. Repentance had to begin before the baptism was administered. After the sinner repented, baptism consummated his repentance, being the symbolic washing away of that from which he had repented and the bringing of the candidate into the blessings granted to the repentant– Mar 1:4, Luk 3:3]: cBut there {ahe that} [John preached repentance because of a coming King; he now announces who the King is. He pictures this King as, first, administering a different baptism from his own; second, as a judge who would separate the righteous from the wicked, just as a husbandman sifts the wheat from the chaff] bcometh after me [Subsequent to me in ministry. But John indicates that the coming of Christ would be closely coupled with his own appearing. One event was to immediately follow the other. So Malachi binds together in one time the appearing of both forerunner and judge– Mal 3:1-3] he that is mightier than I [mightier both to save and to punish], awhose shoes [The sandal then worn was a piece of wood or leather bound to the sole of the foot to protect it from the burning sand or the sharp stones. It was the forerunner of our modern shoe] I am not worthy to bear [To untie or carry away the shoe of the master or his guest was the work of the lowest slave of the household. As a figure of speech, the shoe is always associated with subjugation and slavery ( Psa 60:8). John means, “I am not worthy to be his servant.” John was simply the forerunner of Jesus; the higher office and honor of being Jesus’ attendants was reserved for others– Mat 11:11]: bthe latchet [the lace or strap] of whose shoes I am [78] not worthy to stoop down and unloose. che shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit [That which is here referred to was foretold by the prophets ( Isa 44:3, Joe 2:28). In the early church there was an abundant outpouring of the Spirit of God ( Tit 3:5, Tit 3:6, Act 2:3, Act 2:4, Act 2:17, Act 10:44). This prophecy began to be fulfilled on the day of Pentecost ( Act 1:5, Act 2:4). In the choice of the word “baptize” God indicated through his prophet how full this flooding of the Spirit would be] and in fire [Many learned commentators regard the expression “in fire” as a mere amplification of the spiritual baptism added to express the purging and purifying effects of that baptism, but the context forbids this, for, in Mat 3:10, casting the unfruitful trees into the fire represents the punishment of the wicked, and, in Mat 3:12, the burning of the chaff with fire does the same, and consequently the baptizing in fire of the intervening verse must, according to the force of the context have the same reference. True, the expression “he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and with fire,” does not separate the persons addressed into two parties, and, if the context is disregarded, might be understood as meaning that the same persons were to be baptized in both; yet the context must not be disregarded, and it clearly separates them]: 17 whose fan [Winnowing shovel. In the days of John the Baptist, and in that country at the present day, wheat and other grain was not threshed by machinery. It was beaten out by flails, or trodden out by oxen on some smooth, hard plot of ground called the threshing-floor. These threshing-floors were usually on elevations where the wind blew freely. When the grain was trodden out, it was winnowed or separated from the chaff by being tossed into the air with a fan or winnowing shovel. When so tossed, the wind blew the chaff away, and the clean grain fell upon the threshing-floor] is in his hand [Ready for immediate work. Both John and Malachi, who foretold John, are disposed to picture Jesus as the judge ( Mal 3:2-5). Of all the pictures of God which the Bible gives, that of a judge is the most common and frequent], thoroughly to {aand he will thoroughly} ccleanse his threshing-floor [Removing the [79] chaff is called purging the floor. Humanity is a mixture of good and bad, and to separate this mixture, save the good and destroy the bad, is the work of Christ. He partially purges the floor in this present time by gathering his saints into the church and leaving the unrepentant in the world. But hereafter on the day of judgment he will make a complete and final separation between the just and the unjust by sending the evil from his presence and gathering his own into the garner of heaven ( Mat 25:32, Mat 25:33). He shall also winnow our individual characters, and remove all evil from us– Luk 22:31, Luk 22:32, Rom 7:21-25], and to {aand he will} cgather the {ahis} cwheat into his {athe} cgarner [Eastern garners or granaries were usually subterranean vaults or caves. Garnered grain rested in safety. It was removed from peril of birds, storms, blight and mildew. Christians are now on God’s threshing-floor; hereafter they will be gathered into the security of his garner]; but the chaff [when the Bible wishes to show the worthlessness and the doom of the ungodly, chaff is one of its favorite figures– Job 21:18, Psa 1:4, Isa 17:13, Jer 15:7, Hos 13:3, Mal 4:1] he will burn up [To prevent chaff from being blown back and mixed again with the wheat, it was burned up. All the chaff in the church shall be consumed on the day of judgment ( 1Co 3:12, 1Co 3:13), and there shall be no mixing of good and bad after death– Luk 16:26] with unquenchable fire [In this and in other places ( 2Th 1:8, 2Th 1:9, Mar 9:48, Mat 25:41), the future suffering of the wicked is taught in the Bible. He shows no kindness to his neighbor, no friendship toward mankind, who conceals the terrors of the Lord. These terrors are set forth in no uncertain terms. Many believe that God will restore the wicked and eventually save all the human race. Others hold that God will annihilate the wicked, and thus end their torment. This passage and the one cited in Mark would be hard to reconcile with either of these views; they indicate that there will be no arrest of judgment nor stay of punishment when once God begins to execute his condemnation. God purged the world with water [80] at the time of the flood; he will again purge it with fire on the day of judgment– 2Pe 3:7-10.] 18 With many other exhortations [The sermon here given is in the nature of a summary. It embodies the substance of John’s preaching. Afterwards John preached Christ more directly– Joh 1:29-36] therefore preached he good tidings unto the people. [but, like the good tidings of the angel at Bethlehem, it was good only to those who, by repentance, made themselves well pleasing to God.] [81]

[FFG 62-81]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

Luke Chapter 3

In chapter 3 we find the exercise of the ministry of the word towards Israel, and that for the introduction of the Lord into this world. It is not the promises to Israel and the privileges secured to them by God, nor the birth of that child who was heir to all the promises; the empire, itself a testimony to Israels captivity, being an instrument for the accomplishment of the word respecting the Lord. The years are here reckoned according to the reign of the Gentiles. Judea is a province in the hands of the Gentile empire, and the other parts of Canaan are divided under different chiefs, subordinate to the empire.

The Jewish system continues nevertheless; and the high priests were there to note the years of their subjection to the Gentiles by their names, and at the same time to preserve the order, the doctrine, and the ceremonies of the Jews, as far as could be done in their circumstances at that period.

Now the word of God is ever sure, and it is when the relationships of God with His people fail on the side of their faithfulness, that God in sovereignty maintains His relationship by means of communications through a prophet. His sovereign word maintains it when there are no other means.

But in this case Jehovahs message to His people had a peculiar character; for Israel was already ruined, having forsaken the Lord. The goodness of God had still left the people outwardly in their land; but the throne of the world was transferred to the Gentiles. Israel was now called to repent, to be forgiven, and to take a new place through the coming of the Messiah.

The testimony of God is therefore not in connection with His ordinances at Jerusalem, although the righteous submit to them. Nor does the prophet call them back to faithfulness on the ground on which they were. It is His voice in the wilderness, making His paths straight, in order that He may come, as from without, to those who repented and prepared themselves for His coming. Moreover, since it was the Jehovah Himself who came, His glory should not be confined within the narrow limits of Israel. All flesh should see the salvation wrought by God. The condition of the nation itself was that out of which God called them to come by repentance, proclaiming the wrath that was about to fall upon a rebellious people. Besides, if God came, He would have realities, the true fruits of righteousness, and not the mere name of a people. And He came in His sovereign power, which was able to raise up out of nothing that which He would have before Him. God comes. He would have righteousness as to mans responsibility, because He is righteous. He could raise up a seed unto Abraham by His divine power, and that from the very stones, if He saw fit. It is the presence, the coming of God Himself, that here characterises everything.

Now, the axe was already at the root of the trees, and each was to be judged according to its fruits. It was in vain to plead that they were Jews; if they enjoyed that privilege, where were its fruits? But God did not accept any according to mans estimate of righteousness and privilege, nor the proud judgment the self-righteous might form of others. He addressed Himself to the conscience of all.

Accordingly the publicans, objects of hatred to the Jews, as instruments of the fiscal oppression of the Gentiles; and the soldiers, who executed the arbitrary mandates of the kings, imposed on the people by the Roman will, or that of heathen governors, were exhorted to act in accordance with that which the true fear of God would produce, in contrast with the iniquity habitually practised in accordance with the will of man; the multitude were exhorted to practical charity, while the people, considered as a people, were treated as a generation of vipers, on whom the wrath of God was coming. Grace dealt with them in warning of judgment, but judgment was at the door.

Thus, from Luk 3:3-14, we have these two things: in 3-6 the position of John towards the people as such, in the thought that God Himself would soon appear; in Luk 3:6-14 his address to the conscience of individuals; Luk 3:7-9 teaching them that the formal privileges of the people would afford no shelter in the presence of the holy and righteous God, and that to take refuge in national privilege was only to bring wrath upon themselves-for the nation was under judgment and exposed to the wrath of God. In Luk 3:10 he comes to details. In Luk 3:15-17 the question as to the Messiah is solved.

The great subject however of this passage-the great truth which the testimony of John displayed before the eyes of the people-was that God Himself was coming. Man was to repent. Privileges, granted meanwhile as means of blessing, could not be pleaded against the nature and the righteousness of Him who was coming, nor destroy the power by which He could create a people after His own heart. Nevertheless the door of repentance was open according to His faithfulness towards a people whom He loved.

But there was a special work for the Messiah according to the counsels, the wisdom, and the grace of God He baptised with the Holy Ghost and with fire. That is to say, He brought in the power and the judgment which dispelled evil, whether in holiness and blessing, or in destruction.

He baptises with the Holy Ghost. This is not merely a renewal of desires, but power, in grace, in the midst of evil.

He baptises with fire. This is judgment that consumes the evil.

This judgment is thus applied to Israel, His threshing-floor. He would gather His wheat in safety elsewhere; the chaff should be burnt up in judgment.

But at length John is put in prison by the regal head of the people. Not that this event took place historically at that moment; but the Spirit of God would set forth morally the end of his testimony, in order to commence the life of Jesus, the Son of man, but born the Son of God in this world.

It is with Luk 3:21 that this history begins, and in a manner both wonderful and full of grace. God, by John the Baptist, had called His people to repentance; and those on whom His word produced its effect came to be baptised by John. It was the first sign of life and of obedience. Jesus, perfect in life and in obedience, come down in grace for the remnant of His people, goes thither, taking His place with them, and is baptised with the baptism of John as they were. Touching and marvellous testimony! He does not love at a distance, nor merely in bestowing pardon; He comes by grace into the very place where the sin of His people had brought them, according to the sense of that sin which the converting and quickening power of their God had wrought in them. He leads His people there by grace, but He accompanies them when they go. He takes His place with them in all the difficulties of the way, and goes with them to meet all the obstacles that present themselves; and truly, as identifying Himself with the poor remnant, those excellent of the earth, in whom was all His delight, calling Jehovah His Lord; and making Himself of no reputation, not saying that His goodness extended to God, not taking His eternal place with God, but the place of humiliation; and, for that very reason, of perfection in the position to which He had humbled Himself, but a perfection that recognised the existence of sin, because in fact there was sin, and it behoved the remnant to be sensible of it in returning to God. To be sensible of it was the beginning of good. Hence He can go with them. But in Christ, however humble grace might be, His taking that path with them was grace that wrought in righteousness; for in Him it was love and obedience, and the path by which He glorified His Father. He went in by the door.

Jesus therefore, in taking this place of humiliation which the state of the beloved people required, and to which grace brought Him, found Himself in the place of the fulfilment of righteousness, and of all the good pleasure of the Father, of which He thus became the object, as in this place.

The Father could acknowledge Him, as the One who satisfied His heart in the place where sin and, at the same time, the objects of His grace, were found, that He might give free course to His grace. The cross was the full accomplishment of this. We shall say a word on the difference when speaking of the temptation of the Lord; but it is the same principle as to Christs loving will and obedience. Christ was here with the remnant, instead of being substituted for them and put in their place to atone for sin; but the object of the Fathers delight had, in grace, taken His place with the people, viewed as confessing their sins [9] before God, and presenting themselves to God as concerned in them, while by this really morally out of them, and renewed in heart to confess them, without which the Lord could not have been with them, except as a witness to preach grace to them prophetically.

Jesus having taken this position, and praying-appearing as the godly man, dependent on God and lifting up His heart to God, thus also the expression of perfection in that position-heaven opens to Him. By baptism He took His place with the remnant; in praying-being there-He exhibited perfection in His own relationship with God. Dependence, and the heart going up to God, as the first thing and as the expression, so to say, of its existence, is the perfection of man here below; and, in this case, of man in such circumstances as these. Here then heaven can open. And observe, it was not heaven opening to seek some one afar from God, nor grace opening the heart to a certain feeling; but it was the grace and perfection of Jesus which caused heaven to open. As it is said, Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life. Thus also it is the positive perfection of Jesus [10] that is the reason of heavens opening. Remark also here that, when once this principle of reconciliation is brought in, heaven and earth are not so far from each other. It is true that, till after the death of Christ, this intimacy must be centred in the Person of Jesus and realised by Him alone, but that comprised all the rest. Proximity was established, although the grain of wheat had to remain alone, until it should fall into the ground and die. Nevertheless the angels, as we have seen, could say, Peace on earth, the good pleasure [of God] in men. And we see the angels with the shepherds, and the heavenly host in the sight and hearing of earth praising God for that which had taken place; and here, heaven open upon man, and the Holy Ghost descending visibly upon Him.

Let us examine the import of this last case. Christ has taken His place with the remnant in their weak and humble condition, but in it fulfilling righteousness. The entire favour of the Father rests upon Him, and the Holy Ghost comes down to seal and anoint Him with His presence and His power. Son of God, man on earth, heaven is open to Him, and all the affection of heaven is centred upon Him, and upon Him associated with His own. [11] The first step which these humbled souls take in the path of grace and of life finds Jesus there with them, and, He being there, the favour and delight of the Father, and the presence of the Holy Ghost. And let us always remember that it is upon Him as man while Son of God.

Such is the position of man accepted before God. Jesus is its measure, its expression. It has these two things-the Fathers delight, and the power and seal of the Holy Ghost; and that in this world, and known by him who enjoys it. There is now this difference, already noticed, that we look by the Holy Ghost into heaven where Jesus is, but we take His place down here.

Let us contemplate man thus in Christ-heaven open-the power of the Holy Ghost upon Him and in Him-the testimony of the Father, and the relationship of the Son with the Father.

It will be remarked that the genealogy of Christ is here traced, not to Abraham and David, that He should be the heir of the promises after the flesh, but to Adam; in order to exhibit the true Son of God a man on earth, where the first Adam lost his title, such as it was. The last Adam, the Son of God, was there, accepted of the Father, and preparing to take upon Himself the difficulties into which the sin and fall of the first Adam had brought those of his race who drew nigh to God under the influence of His grace.

The enemy was through sin in possession of the first Adam; and Jesus must gain the victory over Satan, if He would deliver those who are under his power. He must bind the strong man. To conquer him practically is the second part of the Christian life. Joy in God, conflict with the enemy, make up the life of the redeemed, sealed with the Holy Ghost and walking by His power. In both these things the believer is with Jesus, and Jesus with him.

Footnotes for Luke Chapter 3

9: He took it in and with the godly remnant, in the act which distinguished them from the unrepentant, but was the right place of the people, the first act of spiritual life. The remnant with John is the true Jew taking his true place with God. This Christ goes with them in.

10: Remark here, Christ has no object in heaven to fix His attention on, as Stephen; He is the object of heaven. So He was to Stephen by the Holy Ghost, when heaven was open to the saint. His Person is always clearly evident, even when He puts His people in the same place with Himself or connects Himself with them. See on this Matthew.

11: I do not speak here of the union of the church with Christ in heaven, but His taking His place with the remnant, who come to God through grace, led by the efficacy of His word, and by the power of the Spirit This is the reason I apprehend that we find all the people baptised, and then Jesus comes and is associated with them.

Fuente: John Darby’s Synopsis of the New Testament

CHAPTER 4

MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST BY MATTHEW, MARK, AND LUKE

Luk 3:1-2. In the fifteenth year of the dominion of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea and the Trachonitis country, and Lysanias being tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. Luke gives us important specifications, stating that Tiberius was emperor of the Roman world; Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea; Herod i.e., Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, who was on the throne of Judea when our Savior was born, and slew the infants was tetrarch of Galilee. His jurisdiction also included Perea, east of the Jordan. As both of these countries were traversed by our Savior, it is important that they appear in this introductory. The Philip here mentioned, the brother of Herod, and governor of Iturea and Trachonitis, was not the one whose wife, Herodias, Herod Antipas took; but she was the wife of another Philip, who was a half brother to Herod. Abilene, the tetrarchy of Lysanias, was a region of country in Anti-Lebanon, between Damascus and Heliopolis. We have Annas and Caiaphas here, both spoken of as high priests; and we see, in our Lords arraignment, He was brought before each one of them. The solution of the matter seems to be that the Roman authorities favored the high-priesthood of Annas, and the Jewish that of Caiaphas. After Zacharias and Elizabeth fled away from Jutta, near Bethlehem, into the wilderness of Judea, to protect their child from the cruelties of Herod, they returned no more during the minority of John. Consequently, upon reaching the age of thirty, he entered at once upon his ministry there in the desert (Mat 3:1-2), preaching in the desert of Judea, and saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Mar 1:4, John came baptizing in the desert, and preaching the baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins. I here use the word desert, in lieu of wilderness, because the latter is utterly illusory to the American reader. By wilderness, in this country, we understand a wild region of Country, overgrown with briers, brambles, and brush, as well as forest trees. That is not the Bible meaning of the word eremos, which means a region of country either destitute of water, because the rains do not fall on it, or at least partially destitute, because of insufficiency of rains. Four times have I traveled through the wilderness of Judea, where John the Baptist was brought up and did his first preaching. It is a desert, dry and unproductive, seldom seeing a green leaf, because of insufficient rains. Mosses, ferns, and nettles grow there, fed on by the goats, donkeys, and camels. In the deserts there are oases, like islands in the ocean, where springs of water so irrigate as to produce some sustenance for man and beast, and these are the places of habitation. John was brought up in that poor, wild, sterile desert of Judea, lying between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on the west, and the Dead Sea on the east.

Here we see that the burden of Johns Gospel is repentance unto the remission of sins. When man truly repents, God always forgives. John cried, with stentorian voice, Repent, because the kingdom of heaven is at hand; i.e., Christ the King is at hand, who, of course, brings the kingdom with Him. Matthew 3; Mar 1:3; Luk 3:4. The voice of one roaring in the desert, Prepare ye the way of the Lord: make His paths straight. Crying, E.V. is boontos, from boo, the noise an ox makes when he lows. Hence it means roaring like an ox. We see from these facts that John had a stalwart, robust constitution, having been brought up in the rough and tumble life of the desert, and now, thirty years old i.e., a grown young man in his vigor, filled and flooded with the Holy Ghost, he throws his great mouth wide open, and roars, like an ox bawling. His message was simple and brief. He had but one theme, and that was repentance unto the remission of their sins, confirming their covenant by water baptism. His stentorian voice, and the burning truth, which leaped like forked lightnings from his lips, stir the people terrifically, as he assures them that the King of heaven is already on the earth, and the most important enterprise of life is to prepare to meet Him, which they can only do by repenting of all their sins, unto a conscious experimental remission, which he proposed to confirm by water baptism. A true repentance is accompanied by restitution, which undoes all the bad work of the former life, making all wrongs right so far as possible, God taking the will for the deed in case of impossibility. If you would get saved, the Lord must come into your heart. He will not travel over a crooked road. Hence you must make his paths straight i.e., make straight ways for the Lord to come into thy heart; i.e., you must straighten out all of your own crooked ways otherwise the Lord will never come into your heart, and you would better never have been born. John gave the trumpet no uncertain sound. He had both the thunder and the lightning the former, to call attention and terrify; and the latter, to kill. O how the Lord needs such preachers now, to arouse a slumbering world and a dead Church from the lethargy of swift damnation!

Luke 5, 6. Every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low. True repentance brings the king, the queen, the nobleman, the great man, the hon tons of society, down low in the dust at the feet of Jesus, where they can get religion, and be humble enough to black their own shoes, cook, and wash dishes, delighted to wait on themselves and their friends, and live the life of the meek and lowly; while the wonderful redeeming grace of God lifts up beggars, drunkards, and harlots, and transforms the very filth and offscourmg of the world into mighty men and saintly women, whose seraphic voices hold multitudes spellbound, and whose mighty works will glorify God in the day of eternity. Crooked things shall be straight, and rough places shall become the smooth Ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. These wonderful transformations of redeeming grace and sanctifying power, transforming the roughest reprobates into the most amiable saints, and the most stupid simpletons into fire-baptized witnesses for Jesus, the blackest debauchees into bloodwashed pilgrims for glory bound, tells the wonderful secret of the worlds evangelization. There is no other way to bring about this summum desideratum, for which every true heart sighs night and day. Hence it devolves on the holiness people of all lands to verify the Commission, and preach the gospel to every Creature. O what a glorious privilege, to be numbered with the Sacramental Army, going forth to conquer the world for Christ!

JOHNS LIVING

The great reason why we cant evangelize the world is, the puzzling problem of ministerial support. The Bible answers all questions and sweeps away all difficulties. Here we have John the Baptist, the greatest preacher the world saw in four thousand years, and a paragon for all others to imitate. See this wonderful prophet of the desert, with a huge stone for a pulpit, and an audience of ten thousand, standing on the burning sand, listening hour after hour, so utterly spellbound that the sun goes down before they are aware. The preacher has nothing on his body by way of apparel but the coarse, shaggy, camels-hair mantle, worn by the poorest people, and tied around his loins with a strap of rawhide; i.e., actually clothed like a beggar. Now what about boarding the greatest preacher the world had ever seen? It is an unequivocal truth that he lived on the locusts, sweetened with the wild honey gathered from the rocks in the mountains, as the wilderness [desert] of Judea is one continuous bed of rugged, precipitous, cavernous, barren mountains, where very little rain falls in the winter, and none in the summer, producing very scanty vegetation but a short period in the year. I am aware that great efforts have been made to explain away the idea that John really ate the locusts. There is a tree in the Holy Land called the carob or horn tree, bearing fruit eaten by poor people, much resembling the American honey-locust. Many have claimed that this was the food of John the Baptist. Even my Arab guide pointed it out to me as the food which John ate. I must state here, once for all, that the theory is utterly untenable. The fruit of that tree is called keration. (Luk 15:16.) The prodigal son actually ate it, along with the hogs, which are very fond of it; while the word translated locusts, and specifying the food of John the Baptist, is akris, and has no meaning except the animal locust. Hence there is no dodging the issue without flatly contradicting the Word of God. So set it down as a matter of fact that John lived on locusts. This clear revelation of Gods Word is abundantly corroborated by all the collateral facts and circumstances appertaining to the case.

(a) This day the locusts abound in the very country where John lived thirty years and entered upon his wonderful ministry.

I have seen them, in quantities so great that I could have filled a bushel basket in a diameter of a single rod.

(b) It is a well-known fact that the Bedouins, living in the desert now, eat the locusts, not simply in case of emergency, but they are very fond of them, regarding them as a luxury, and devouring them voraciously, preferring them cooked, with salt, but eating them unhesitatingly raw, with salt if they have it, and without it if they have it not. They traverse the desert, hunting them; fill great sacks with them; carry them on camels and donkeys to their tents, and feast like kings so long as the locusts last.

(c) The poor people in the desert, with whom John was brought up, habitually eat the locusts.

Of course they invited their preacher to eat with them, giving him such as they had; i.e., locusts sweetened with wild honey. My Arab guide, accompanying me when I saw the locusts in the wilderness of Judea, and dismounted so as to enjoy a good look at them, as they manifested no disposition to get out of my way, told me that they taste much like fish, and are quite palatable. I took his word, and was satisfied without testing the matter. The locusts which I saw were very fine looking, and several times so large as the grasshoppers in the American deserts, of which the Indians are so fond.

(d) Good Lord, deliver us from criticizing Thy Word, and give us grace unhesitatingly to take the Bible as it says, and save us from all efforts to explain it away! John the Baptist had no money, and needed none.

We do not conclude from this that we should not give the preachers money, or anything else we have and they need. But we do conclude that the person who waits for money is out of Gods order. John had none, and was not in a place to get any. Myriads are now called by the Holy Ghost under similar circumstances. O how they grieve the Spirit when they wait, year after year, for money to defray traveling expenses, pay board, and purchase clothing and books, while millions are dropping into hell! I find men and women everywhere who confess that they are called by the Spirit, and are not in the work. An awful responsibility awaits them at the judgment bar. They should go, like John the Baptist, waiting for nothing. The Lord will provide.

It may not be my way, It may not be thy way; Yet, in His own way, The Lord will provide.

If I could be a thousand men, I have open doors enough for them all to enter. What about the support? That is already settled with a draft on heavens bank.

Can we not have the faith of Sister Amelia Andrew, the wife of the sainted bishop? The Confederate War has swept over the country, a deluge of blood and fire, disorganizing Churches and revolutionizing society. General Lee has surrendered, and the war is over. Bishop Andrew, though now an octogenarian, is much concerned for the work in Texas, which has received no attention during the dark quadrennium.

He says to his sanctified Amelia, O, how Id like to go to Texas, and look after the interest of Gods kingdom in the great Lone Star State!

My dear, why do you not go? No money.

I can send you to the boat-landing on Tombighee River, in my carriage, without any money.

But what can I do when I get there, with no money to defray my traveling expenses?

The Lord will provide, responded the sanctified wife.

The venerable bishop acquiesces, and goes away by faith alone, without a cent of money. On arrival at the boat-landing, he meets a steamboat captain, a dear old friend, who kindly invites him to accept a free ride to New Orleans. On arrival at New Orleans, he meets a sea captain, a precious old friend, so glad to see him, who invites him to enjoy a free ride on his ship to Galveston, Texas. O how the Texans are delighted to receive him! God blesses his ministry. He stays long, sees the glory of God, and returns to his Alabama home with money in his pocket.

But this was a good run of luck. O no! It was the good providence of God.

I have seen it all my life. The difficulty of ministerial support is the devils trump-card, in the game he is playing with the Church for the damnation of the world. The argument in the case of John the Baptist is unanswerable, covering all the ground, and applicable under all circumstances.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Luk 3:1. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Csar. St. Luke begins this chapter in a scientific manner; he speaks as a man of letters, and gives posterity a chronological record. Pontius Pilate had been governor, or as some call him only procurator of Judea, but one or two years, when the word of the Lord came to John.

Herod the great, tetrarch of Galilee. From this title it would seem that he held four provinces under his government.

Philip, tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis; that is, from the sea of Galilee, to the foot of mount Lebanon, comprising Galilee of the gentiles, and the region beyond JorDaniel Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, a considerable country of Clo-Syria, between Lebanon and little Lebanon. Abila, now Bellinas, was its capital. The river Chrysorrhoas flowed through the centre of the country. Coins have been found with the name Abila. The Greeks, from the adjacent white rocks, called it Leucadia. Those four governments comprised the Roman dominions in all Syria.

Luk 3:2. Caiaphas being the sagon, or acting highpriest, for Annas was then alive. The word of God came to John, a manifestation of mercy worthy of the exactest record. The next seven verses are much the same as in Matthew 3.

Luk 3:11. He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none. Sinners should begin to ask mercy by first showing mercy. From many traits of ancient history we gather, that the poor in primitive society were half naked. Hence the law of not keeping a pledge over night, it being the only covering of a poor labourer. Deu 24:12-13.

Luk 3:12-13. Then came the publicans, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do? And he said, exact no more than that which is appointed. The officers of the revenue in those times, added as much to the tax as the tax itself, for the expense and trouble of collecting. A French traveller in Egypt mentions the case of a woman whose gleanings and winter food in a sack of wheat being carried off for taxes, who in sore anguish dashed her infant out of her arms on the stones, and killed it dead on the spot.

Luk 3:14. The soldiers likewise and John said, do violence to no man. The Romans governed chiefly by military force; intimidation was the principal argument. Military men should be protectors, not oppressors of their country. Thus John exalted the vallies, and levelled the moral mountains that stood in the way.

Luk 3:21. When all the people were baptized Jesus being also baptized, prayed. Mat 3:15. He came to fulfil all righteousness; he came with a final blessing above all the expectations of John, and of his people, and manifested forth his glory.

Luk 3:36. The son of Cainan. The name of this progenitor is in the LXX, but not in the Hebrew text. Eusebius however retains it in his chronological canon, and St. Luke must have found it in the early gospels to which he had access. The LXX read, Arphaxad lived one hundred and thirty five years, and begat Cainan: and Cainan lived one hundred and thirty and five years, and begat Salah. Gen 11:12-13. From the exact number of a hundred and thirty five years in both those patriarchs, before the reigning prince was born, it is contended that Cainan is but a surname of the same person. Be that as it may, learned men very much adhere to the chronology of the LXX, notwithstanding the derangement it makes in the Hebrew chronology. Unless the years which the LXX give to Cainan be admitted, the time allowed from the deluge of Noah to the inundation of Ogyges can never be explained.

Luk 3:38. Adam, which was the son of God. He was justly so called, because though a creature, he had neither father nor mother, but was the immediate production of the great Creator. Being thus the son of God, he was heir and lord of all the earth. All living beings were put under his power, and were caused to revere a presence superior to all their affinities.

REFLECTIONS.

How indulgent is divine providence, to give us by sacred history a glance into ages past. We see the origin of man, while the poor Indian knows little beyond his grandfather. All other events he confounds in one dense cloud of obscurity. They happened, he supposes, ten thousand moons ago. Our Saxon chiefs, in attempting to go back like the Trojans to the Dardanian race, can name only four generations, and then declare that their great grandfather was the son of Odin. No doubt, we are nobly descended, our first father being the son of God. But the Hebrew chronology does more. It shows us the reign of grace, the covenant care of heaven over the church; that Messiah was the son of David, according to the flesh, but declared the Son of God with power when he raised him from the dead. It shows us the opening of the divine good-pleasure, in sending a herald to presede the Saviour in the spirit and power of Elijah. All those disclosures of the divine counsel were the developement of the mystery hid in ages past.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Luk 3:1-20. John the Baptist.Mar 1:1-8*, Mat 3:1-12*. also Mar 6:17-29*, Mat 14:3-12*. Lk. now (to Luk 9:50) follows the Marcan account of the Galilean ministry of Jesus and its antecedents; he adds material from Q and other sources.

Luk 3:1. On the chronology, see pp. 652f.; Pontius Pilate, p. 609; Herod (Antipas) and Philip, p. 609. Abilene was the district round Abila between Mt. Hermon and Anti-Lebanon, north-west of Damascus. Caiaphas was really high-priest (since A.D. 18); Annas, his father-in-law, had held the office A.D. 615, and was still a man of great influence.

Luk 3:6. Lk.s universalism appears in this extension of the quotation from Isaiah 40; Isaiah vv7 may also reflect hie wider interests against Mt.s Pharisees and Sadducees.

Luk 3:10-14. Lk. only. An interesting addition to Mt., giving us a view of Johns teaching which reminds us of Mic 6:8. Kindness and fair dealing between man and man are the Divine requirements; they show that repentance is bearing fruit and therefore genuine.publicans: Mat 5:46*.soldiers: probably in the service of Antipas (cf. Luk 23:11); perhaps for the war against Aretas (p. 654), or perhaps a kind of gendarmerie supporting the tax-collectors.wages: lit. rations.

Luk 3:15 is also peculiar to Lk., and may be his own way of leading up to Luk 3:16 f. Another way is shown in Joh 1:19 ff.

Luk 3:18 f. Lk. here sums up, and inserts what Mk. and Mt. give more fully at a later point. He does not tell us of Johns death, but like the others he makes the Baptists imprisonment the signal for Jesus to begin His work.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS

(vs.1-20)

The first two verses of this chapter establish the precise time of the appearance of John the Baptist in his ministry, so that the reality of it cannot be disputed, and they indicate that this solemn call of Israel to repentance was at a time when wickedness was prospering in high places. Tiberius Caesar was notorious for his cruelty to the Jews, specially bitter toward them, though other religions meant nothing to him either. Pontius Pilate’s administration was one of cruel injustice. Herod and his brother Philip were both characterized by moral depravity (Mat 14:3-4). Also there were two high priests — Annas and Caiaphas — in total opposition to the Word of God (v.2). They were appointed by the Romans, who chose those they favored most, in this case both Sadducees, those who refused the truth of resurrection and denied the existence of angels or spirits (Act 23:8). This was the dark setting for the solemn message of John, his own nation being enmeshed in corruption!

The Spirit of God laid upon the heart of John the Word of God so needed at that moment by Israel. But though of the priestly family, he did not go near the temple in Jerusalem nor seek any authority from priestly dignities before preaching the truth of God. He preached in the wilderness of Judea, in the vicinity of the Jordan River (v.3). He was not interested in seeking crowds or he would have begun in the city, but crowds nevertheless came to him in the wilderness. This was God’s doing, not man’s. John maintained a decided separation from the established religious center of the nation, for he preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

Only those who admitted they had sinned would come to him therefore, for everyone baptized with John’s baptism was in this act admitting that he had broken the law of God and therefore death and burial (typified in baptism) was a just sentence against him. This baptism was in view of remission of sins, for a confession of guilt is required if there is be forgiveness, Symbolically, this baptism looks forward to the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, in which alone forgiveness is to be obtained.

Isa 40:1-31 is quoted in verse 4-6 as referring directly to John as a voice crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Repentance was certainly a prime necessity in this preparation, an honest facing of sin that had dishonored God. The Lord’s paths were to be made straight, for He would allow no tortuous, twisting deceit of men’s minds: they could not approach Him in a state of dishonesty.

Valleys would be filled, that is, those willingly of lowly character, would be lifted up, but mountains and hills (people in a state of self-exaltation) would be brought low. The crooked (perverted principles commonly accepted) would be made straight, and rough ways (the paths in which sin has caused trouble and sorrow) would be made smooth, for sin would be judged. He speaks of the salvation of God being seen, not only by Israel, but by “all flesh” (vs.5-6). This prophesied-salvation is accomplished only in the One whose way John was preparing.

Mat 3:7 tells us that it was when John saw many Pharisees and Sadducees watching him baptize that he said, “Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Yet Luke shows that this was spoken to all the crowd who came, for there were many who were cunning and deceitful (v.7). Whoever might have such moral character, let him take to heart John’s words. He pressed that if they would claim to repent, let their repentance be proven by fruits consistent with it. To boastfully say that Abraham was their father was no repentance at all, but self-justification. God could raise up children to Abraham “of these stones,” that is, those present whom the Pharisees considered of no value (as Peter, by definition “a stone”).

The axe was laid to the root of the trees (v.9): no measure of self-improvement on the part of Israel would be recognized by God. If the tree was bad, as evidenced by its fruit, the tree would be cut down (not only some of its branches) and thrown into the fire. Solemn warning of the judgment of God against falsehood in any of us or in any nation, no matter how appealing an impression falsehood seeks to make.

Only Luke records the people asking John what they ought to do, for Luke singles out those things that have to do with moral character. John’s Gospel rather dwells on the Baptist’s testimony to the glory of the Lord Jesus. Here John answered the common people to the effect that they should willingly share what they had with those in need (v.11). This is not the gospel of grace, but it challenges Israelites as to whether they were willing to act by faith in the true God. Not that this necessarily would be a proof of faith, for some would do such things with selfish motives, but it was a challenge nevertheless. John did not have the full answer to people’s needs, but he pointed to the One who did.

The hated tax gatherers also inquired and were told simply to collect no more taxes than the government appointed. This is an elementary matter, but it confirms the fact that it was a common practice for these men to profit by dishonesty. Jewish soldiers — the police of that time — were warned against intimidating or oppressing anyone, as is a temptation for this class of men; also against false accusations, and were told to be content with their wages, which is possibly the least appreciated exhortation (vs.12-14). But reality of faith would welcome such instruction.

The atmosphere of expectancy among the people had been awakened by God. But though the birth of the Lord Jesus had been heralded by the shepherds and confirmed by wise men from the east, yet the people had evidently forgotten this and reasoned as to whether John was the Messiah. John unhesitatingly denied this. In fact he had said before that he was merely sent to prepare the way for the Lord. He baptized with water (which the Lord personally did not — Joh 4:2), baptism being simply a formal rite that symbolized putting a dead person in his grave. But one mightier than he was coming after him, whose shoe-lace he was unworthy to unloose. This coming one would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (v.16).

The time of the baptism of (or in the power of) the Spirit was not until after Christ had died, risen and ascended back to glory. It would be a marvelous, miraculous work of grace, infinitely greater than John’s baptism. John did not know the details of this unusual baptism. It is Paul, in 1Co 12:13, who is given the privilege to explain that by this baptism all believers, Jewish and Gentile, are baptized into one body, the Church of God. The term “baptized” is used because all mere natural distinctions are buried, that there might be a full, true unity of believers from every nation under heaven, thus forming a completely new and wonderful company, distinct from the nation Israel and from the Gentiles as well. Thus, the power and grace of God are wonderfully displayed.

Baptizing with fire is the solemn alternative of this, as verse 17 shows. It is virtually burial by fire, the devastating judgment of God upon unbelievers. John uses the symbol of the threshing-floor where the wheat (believers) is separated from the chaff (unbelievers), the wheat gathered into the granary, the chaff burned with fire not to be quenched, an eternal, abiding judgment. How awesome a contrast to the greatness of blessing of those redeemed by the blood of Christ! Here Luke ends the ministry of John with the observation that he had more than this to say in exhorting the people.

John’s brief public ministry is silenced by the vicious enmity of King Herod toward God (vs.1-20). It was right that John should reprove Herod for his serious sin in taking his brother’s wife as his own, for Herod was king of that nation chosen by God and responsible to be subject to God’s authority. So there is no doubt the prophet spoke for God. There were other evils also for which John reproved him. but rather than taking this to heart, Herod added the wickedness of imprisoning the Lord’s servant. Mat 14:3 indicates also that Herod was influenced by his evil unlawful wife to do this.

THE LORD JESUS BAPTIZED BY JOHN

(vs.21-22)

John’s ministry occupied very little time: as he said, he must decrease while the Lord must increase (Joh 3:30). This chapter illustrates the fact that the order in Luke’s Gospel is not chronological, but moral, for the event of verses 21-22 took place before that of verses 19 and 20, yet here is recorded after. John had certainly not been put in prison at the time He baptized the Lord. Joh 3:22-23 is clear also that the ministry of John the Baptist overlapped that of the Lord Jesus for a short time.

So verse 21 does not mean that John baptized no one after baptizing the Lord, but it emphasizes that there is an important connection between their baptism and His. By being baptized the Lord was virtually pledging to take on Himself the responsibility for the sins of repentant Israelites, and would fulfill this pledge in His own death on the cross, of which His baptism is symbolic. Thus, 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. On four occasions we have such an event recorded in scripture — in Eze 1:1; Luk 3:21 (recorded also in Matthew and Mark); Act 10:11 and Rev 19:11. The last is future, and Joh 1:51 prophesies of this same future event.

With this opening of the heavens the Spirit of God descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon the Lord. Only in this Gospel is a bodily shape mentioned. This marvelous event, witnessed by many, was to make known unmistakably the Father’s pure delight in, and approval of this blessed Man who was more than Man, the beloved Son of the Father. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all engaged in this wonderful event. How could it be that those who witnessed this could ever forget it? Yet the religious leaders chose to ignore it. Notice too that Luke speaks of the Father personally addressing the Son in the intimacy of living relationship and expressing delight in Him.

THE GENEALOGY OF THE LORD JESUS

(vs.23-38)

The time of this initial act preceding the public ministry of the Lord is told us here as being when He was about 30 years of age (v.23). What years of patient, unobserved preparation those 30 years were, compared to the brief three and one half years of His public ministry! But John the Baptist’s time of ministry was much less, comparatively, while his lonely, isolated preparation was just as long.

The Lord’s genealogy given in these verses proceeds back to Adam. The genealogy of Mat 1:1-25 begins with Abraham and comes forward to Joseph and Christ. Matthew gives the kingly line, so there the official title of Christ to the throne of Israel is established. This is through Joseph who was not actually in the line of the Lord Jesus at all. Though verse 23 speaks of Christ as supposedly the son of Joseph, yet the line is manifestly that of Mary, for Joseph had a different father, Jacob (Mat 1:16). Both lines go back to David. Luke, however, giving the actual genealogy, goes back to Adam to emphasize the reality of the Manhood of the Lord Jesus and to remind us that man as such proceeded-from God (v.38).

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 1

Herod’s kingdom was divided after his death.–A tetrarch is a ruler over a portion of a kingdom, possessing, in some respects, kingly powers. A governor, in the New Testament, is the ruler of a province, which was more directly dependent upon the government of Rome. Judea and the adjoining countries, which, in the days of Herod the Great, constituted a kingdom, were now separated, and Judea itself was a province.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

CHAPTER 3

Ver. 1.-Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Csar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Juda, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Itura and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,

Ver. 2.-Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

S. Luke passes from the twelfth year of Christ to His thirtieth, when, after the manner of the Hebrews, He began to discharge His Office of Teacher and Redeemer and to preach publicly.

In the fifteenth year. Augustus reigned for fifty-seven years from the death of Julius Caesar, and died on the 19th of August; so that the last year of Augustus was not a complete year, and, consequently, the first of Tiberius only consisted of five months, from August to January, from which the Romans began the year. This Tiberius, having heard wonderful things through Pilate of the miracles and the sanctity of Christ, wished to place Him among the gods, but the senate opposed him, because he had attempted to do it without consulting them (see Commentary on S. Mat 27:24).

Pontius Pilate being governor of Juda. Archelus, son of the Infanticide Herod, was exiled by Augustus for his tyrannical conduct in the tenth year of his tetrarchy, supposed to be the fifty-second of Augustus and the twelfth of the life of Christ. Augustus then joined Juda (that is, the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin) to the province of Syria, the governor of which was at the time Quirinus, or, as S. Luke calls him, Cyrenius, who committed the administration of Juda to Coponius. Hence the governors of Juda were called procurators or administrators, though they were really governors. Pilate is here called , ruler or chief; and the Arabic has “in the dominion over Juda of Pontius Pilate.” Pilate was the fifth procurator of Juda in succession from Coponius; he ruled nine years, in the second of which Christ was baptized, and in the fifth was crucified by him. By the vengeance of God Pilate was exiled by Augustus in the twenty-third year of the reign of the latter.

Herod being tetrarch of Galilee. In the Arabic, “In the dominion of Herod the ruler over the fourth of Galilee, and of Philip, his brother, over the fourth of Itura.” A tetrarch is one who governs the fourth part of a province or kingdom; called by Theodoret a “Quadruplaris.”

Herod the Infanticide, dying five days after the massacre of the innocents, in the second year of Christ left three sons, Archelus, Herod Antipas, and Philip (for he had put the rest to death-one of them, Antipater, at the very time of the massacre of the innocents). These striving together about the succession of their father, Augustus divided the kingdom into four parts, or tetrarchies; he gave Juda to Archelus (and after his expulsion to Coponius), Galilee to Herod Antipas, Itura and Trachonitis to Philip, and Abilene to Lysanias, a foreigner. These tetrarchies were of great size, and like kingdoms, as Pliny tells us (bk. v. 18); and so Herod Antipas, although he is called a tetrarch by S. Matthew (Mat 14:1), is called a king by S. Mar 6:14. Indeed Herod Agrippa, father and son, the nephew and grand-nephew of Herod Antipas, being son and grand-son of his brother Aristobulus, obtained from Caligula and from Claudius the title of king, as appears from Act 12:1 and Act 25:24.

And his brother Philip tetrarch of Itura and the region of Trachonitis. Itura, so called from Iethur or Ithur, the son of Ishmael, is a mountainous and woody district stretching along the base of the Lebanon. Trachon, or Trachonitis, says Pliny (bk. v, ch. 18), is a region beyond Jordan, between Palestine and Clesyria, bounded on the east by the Arabian desert, and on the north by Damascus; it was inhabited by half the tribe of Manasseh.

And Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene. Bede and Adrichomius think that this Lysanias was a fourth son of Herod the Infanticide. But Josephus says that he was the son of another Lysanias, who was the elder son of Ptolemy Minnus, who ruled in Chalcis close by Mount Lebanon, and that he succeeded him in his kingdom before Herod the Infanticide had been made king of Juda by the Romans. The elder Lysanias was slain by Antony, the colleague of Augustus and Lepidus in the Triumvirate, at the instigation of Cleopatra, who was scheming to add his kingdom to her own ancestral kingdom of Egypt. This happened thirty years before the birth of Christ. Lysanias the younger tried to reinstate Antigonus in the kingdom of Juda, to the exclusion of Hyrcanus, whom Herod the Infanticide supported; for this reason Herod was created King of Juda by the Roman Senate at the instance of Antony and Augustus, both Hyrcanus and Antigonus being excluded, as Josephus relates in bk. i. ch. 11 of his “War;” and the same author, in bk. xix. ch. 4 of his “Antiquities,” asserts that all that region was called Lysania, after Lysanias.

Abilene, Abila, Abyla, or Abela, is a celebrated town of Clesyria situated by Mount Lebanon, and from it the region of Abilene, or Abilina, takes its name. Abilene borders on Damascus towards the cast, Chalcis on the west, and the Lebanon on the south.

S. Luke is at great pains to enumerate here the chief personages, both secular and ecclesiastic:-

(1.) To mark distinctly and palpably the time and year when John, and then Christ, began to preach.

(2.) To shew that the sceptre had now passed from Judah, because Herod and his sons the tetrarchs, and Tiberias and the Romans had become the rulers of Juda, and that therefore the Messiah, the beginning of whose preaching he relates in this chapter, had come, according to the prophecy of Jacob, Gen 49:10.

(3.) To give us to understand that Israel, torn in sunder among so many rulers; some infidels, others impious men, had need of the advent of the Messiah, Who should make the people whole and save them.

(4.) Because these personages had much to do with those works of John and of Christ which S. Luke will afterwards relate. Tiberius, as I have said, wished to number Christ among the gods; Pilate crucified Him; Herod Antipas seized upon Herodias the wife of his brother Philip, and being reproved by John, slew him; and he clothed Christ in a white dress and mocked Him; while Annas and Caiaphas persecuted Christ to death, and also persecuted the Apostles after His death.

Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests. There was but one high priest of the Jews, as appears from Josephus and others; why then are there two mentioned here? My answer is that Caiaphas was the high priest, but there were many chief, or leading priests, as is clear from Matt. xxvi. 3, and the chief priests, are repeatedly mentioned in the Passion of Christ, as accusing Him before Pilate, condemning Him, mocking Him, but the most prominent of them were Caiaphas and Annas, the former as being high priest, the latter as father-in-law of Caiaphas, and as having been high priest, and having great influence among the Jews; indeed, Annas had five sons who were high priests after him (Josephus, “Antiquities,” bk. xx. ch. 8).

The word (that is, the command) of God came unto John the son of Zacharias. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, God ordered John the Baptist to preach and baptize; ordered him by an interior inspiration, perhaps too by the voice of an angel.

Ver. 3.-And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance (i.e., stirring them up to do penance) for the remission of sins-to be obtained in the baptism of Christ. John was preaching penance, that by it they might dispose themselves for the reception of pardon and grace from Christ. See Matt. iii.

Ver. 4.-As it is written in the book of the words of Isaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.

Ver. 5.-Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be bought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth. S. Gregory (Hom. xx. In Evangelia), S. Augustine, S. Chrysostom, Bede, and others interpret these words as meaning, Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted, as Christ said. This, however, is a discourse in which John exhorts his hearers to a change of life and conversation, as though he said, 0 ye Jews, prepare the way for Christ, your Messiah, now about to come to you. Wherefore, “Every valley shall be filled,” i.e., let it be filled up, “and every mountain and hill shall be brought low,” i.e., let it be brought low, “and the crooked,” i.e., difficult ways, “shall be,” i.e., let them be made, “into straight,” &c. In other words, smooth all the ways for Christ, your King, Who cometh, as is wont to be done for kings that are about to enter upon their kingdoms, so that the rough ways be made smooth and level. Remove from your minds all that is evil, distorted, or unequal; too much lifted up, or too much cast down; he that beareth in his heart the mountain of pride, let him bring down this swelling, and he that hath in him the valley of pusillanimity or sloth, let him lift and fill it up with generosity and confidence in God; and he that is of “rough” behaviour, let him train himself to suavity and modesty.

And all flesh shall see the salvation of God-i.e., so shall it come to pass that every man shall be able to see both with the eyes of the body, and also more especially with those of the soul, “the salvation of God”-the Saviour Christ-feel and experience within himself the salvation and the power of the grace brought by Christ.

S. Gregory (Hom. 20 In Evang.) says, “Every valley shall be filled up, because the humble receive a gift which the hearts of them that are puffed up repel from them. The bad places are made straight when the hearts of the wicked, turned awry by iniquity, are directed by the rule of justice; and the rough places are turned into smooth ways when haughty and angry minds return to the gentleness of meekness by the infusion of heavenly grace.”

The verses from 7 to 10 have been explained in the Commentary on S. Mat 3:7.

Ver. 10.-And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? that we may bear fruits worthy of penance, and so avoid the ruin threatened by you, and obtain everlasting salvation. John had accused the Pharisees and the populace, but the Pharisees “despised the counsel of God,” c. vii. 30, and therefore also the discourse of John; but the crowd of common people, deeply moved and touched by the force of his preaching, try to find out the way to repent, so as to seize upon John’s instructions, and offer themselves to him ready and prepared. So also, in these days, the common people were more ready than the great to take hold of the warnings of preachers, and are therefore saved rather than they.

Ver. 11.-He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise. A synecdoche; he signifies every kind of alms-deed by one which is the more common and necessary; clothing and feeding the poor. “Two” supposing one coat to be sufficient to clothe and warm the body, and the other, therefore, superfluous, let him give that other “to him that hath not,” to him that is naked and in need of a coat. For if both be necessary he is not bound to, give either to the poor man. So S. Jerome (Qust. I. ad Hedibiam); and S. Ambrose, on this passage, says, “The limits of mercy are observed according to the capability of human nature, so that each one deprive not himself of everything, but share what he has with the poor man,” and he adds, “He that is able, let him bear the fruit of grace, he that is bound, of penance. The use of mercy is common, therefore the precept is common; mercy is the fulness of the virtues.”

This, then, is one of the fruits worthy of penance, according to the words of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, “Break off thy sins by righteousness and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor” Dan 4:27. Besides, almsgiving fitly disposes our lives for every virtue. Every virtue is either of obligation or of supererogation; justice is of obligation, mercy of supererogation, and therefore mercy satisfies both for itself and for justice, both because he that gives what is his own, will not seize what belongs to others, and also because he that gives what he is not bound to give will much more pay what he owes-to which he is bound by justice or some other virtue-and again because mercy comes of love and charity, and charity is the fulness of the law. For “He that loveth hath fulfilled the law,” Rom 13:8.

Euthymius aptly remarks here, “He enjoins on the multitudes to take one another into mutual benevolence, and assist one another with mutual good works.” For the many easily understand works of mercy, and devote themselves to them, while they are not easily induced to prayer, fasting, and works of penance, and sometimes are incapable of them.

Ver. 12.-Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do?-to save our souls. Here is fulfilled the saying of Christ “Publicans and harlots shall be before you (0 Scribes) in the kingdom of God,” Mat 21:31. For the sinners, being called to account by John, felt deep compunction, acknowledged their fault, and sought for penance; but the proud Scribes, thinking themselves just and wise, despised it.

Ver. 13.-And he said unto them, exact no more than that which is appointed you-in the exaction of taxes. In the Greek it is , which can be translated both make and exact, but in this place is more clearly rendered exact as the Syriac and the Greek render it. So Jansenius, Maldonatus, Francis Lucas, and others. For tax-gatherers are wont to increase the tribute out of avarice, and to exact more than is appointed by the Ruler, which is theft or rapine, wherefore John here charges them with it. “He lays a moderate command on them,” says S. Augustine (Serm. 3 de Diversis), “that both iniquity may have no place, and the appointed tribute may have effect” “So the Baptist,” says S. Ambrose, “gives to each generation of men the answer suitable to them.” Let the preacher do the same, and prescribe to wives, to husbands, to sons, to maidservants, to menservants, to merchants, farmers and lawyers, what each in particular ought to do, and give each one the directions proper to his state of life.”

Ver. 14.-And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages. Soldiers who were serving some of them under Herod Antipas against Aretas, the king of the Arabs, some under the prefect of the Temple, and some under Pilate, the Roman Governor; these men, hearing John thundering against their vices, and threatening them with hell, conscious of rapine and other crimes, which soldiers are wont to commit, becoming, together with the publicans, contrite, at the word of John, seek from him the remedy of penance, of a good life, and of salvation. John, therefore, tacitly gives it to be understood that it is lawful to be a soldier, and that war is lawful, as S. Ambrose teaches (Serm. 7), and S. Augustine (Contra Faustum, bk. xxii. ch. lxxiv.)

Ver. 15.-And as the people were in expectation (in the Greek , suspecting, expecting, as Vatablus renders it-when the people were hoping, or were in suspense with hope, desire, and expectation), and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not-the Messiah promised to the fathers, and so eagerly expected by all the Jews at this particular time when the sceptre had passed from Judah, and Daniel’s seventy weeks, the sign of Christ’s coming, were fulfilled. As the people, then, were spreading this report about John, the chief men of the Jews at length sent messengers to him to ask him whether he were Christ (Joh 1:19). Such was the holiness of John. So S. Ambrose, Bede, and others explain.

Ver. 16.-John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I cometh, namely the Messias.

The rest which Luke here adds has been explained on Mat 3:11.

Morally, Origen says, “Preachers are here warned not to allow themselves to be too much praised or honoured by the people, but to suppress these praises and honours, and refer them to Christ, lest by reason of their pride they be deprived of them by Christ.”

Ver. 23.-And Jesus Himself began to be about thirty years old. “Beginning” refers not to “thirty years,” for then “about” would be redundant, but to the public preaching of Jesus, for which He was sent by the Father. Having been declared in His baptism the Messiah, the Teacher, Lawgiver, and Saviour of the world by the Dove and by the voice of the Father, and when He was therefore beginning to exercise this His function, and to teach the Gospel law and preach publicly, Jesus “was about thirty years old.” This is plain from the Greek, which has, “And Jesus was about thirty years beginning,” i.e., when He began to preach. So Jansenius, Baronius, and others.

Observe the “about;” he does not state definitely whether Jesus was exactly thirty. If we suppose Him to have been born in the forty-second year of Augustus, Jesus was, in this year of His baptism-the fifteenth of Tiberius-completing His twenty-ninth year and beginning His thirtieth. But if He were born in the forty-first of Augustus He was now completing His thirtieth year.

Thirty years. John, and a little after him, Christ, began to preach not too soon, but at a proper age. The Hebrews have the tradition that no one was allowed to teach publicly before his thirtieth year, for at that age a man is in his full vigour, and his judgment fully matured and perfected. This we also gather from 1Ch 23:3.

As was supposed, the son of Joseph, which was (here, and before each of the following names the Arabic puts in “the son”) of Heli, which was of Mathat. From this passage Porphyry and Julian the Apostate accused Luke of being incorrect, because Joseph was not the son of Heli, but of Jacob, as S. Matthew says (Mat 1:1-17); and because S. Luke gives the other progenitors of Joseph and Heli names entirely different from those given them by S. Matthew.

Besides, Jesus was not the son of Joseph, but born of the Virgin Mary.

The solution given by some to this difficulty is that Joseph was by nature the son of Jacob, but by law the son of Heli. By the old law (Deu 25:5) a surviving brother had to raise up seed to his dead brother, and the brother who had died childless was held to be the legal father of these sons. Now Jesca, says Euthymius, married Mathat, and by him had Heli, then she married Mathan, and by him had Jacob. Heli died without issue, and his brother Jacob married his wife in accordance with the law, and Joseph was his son by her, being, therefore, naturally the son of Jacob, but legally of Heli. So Justinus, S. Jerome, Eusebius, Nazianzen, and S. Ambrose explain it. But, on the other hand, Heli and Jacob were only uterine brothers, and the law on the subject of raising up seed to a brother only applies to full brothers, sons of the same father; for they alone kept the name and heritage of the father. Besides, the introduction of Jesca is beside the point. For though her sons, Heli and Jacob, be connected through her, yet they would have no connection through Mathat and Mathan and the rest of their ancestors up to David.

This, therefore, has nothing to do with the pedigree of the Blessed Virgin and Christ, in so far as showing Jesus to be of the seed of David according to the flesh is concerned. For if Jesus be descended from Jesca and Mathat, He could not be also descended from Jesca and Mathan; how, then, is He set down as the descendant of both Mathan and Mathat?

My opinion is that in the time of Christ it was very well known that Mathan was the common grandfather of Joseph and the Blessed Virgin; and that Jacob, the father of Joseph, and Heli, or Joachim, the father of the Blessed Virgin, were full brothers – as Francis Lucas holds – or rather, that Jacob was the brother of S. Anne, the wife of Heli, or Joachim, and mother of the Blessed Virgin; hence the genealogy of one is the genealogy of the other. For the Blessed Virgin was descended, through her mother, from Jacob, Mathan, and Solomon, and, through her father, Joachim or Heli, from Mathat and Nathan.

So S. Matthew gives the genealogy of the Blessed Virgin through her mother S. Anne, while S. Luke gives it through her father Heli, or Joachim, so that Christ may be shown to be descended of the seed of David in both ways.

There is no other better way than this of reconciling the genealogies given by SS. Matthew and Luke. Moreover, it is the common opinion of S. Augustine, Denis the Carthusian, Cajetan, Jansenius, and other doctors whom Suarez quotes (pt. iii., qust. xxvii. a. 1, disp. 3, sect. 2) that S. Luke traces the genealogy of Christ through Heli, or Joachim, the father of the Blessed Virgin. Hence it must follow that S. Matthew’s genealogy is traced through S. Anne, and that she was the daughter of Mathan; for otherwise all her ancestors, whom S. Matthew recounts, belong only to Joseph, and not to the Blessed Virgin and Christ.

S. Matthew then traces Christ’s descent through His father Joseph, S. Luke through His mother, the Blessed Virgin; both lines are united in David, but after him separate through his two sons Solomon and Nathan. And again these two lines of Nathan and of Solomon unite in S. Anne, the daughter of Mathan, and sister of Jacob, Joseph’s father.

GENEALOGY OF CHRIST, ACCORDING TO SS. MATTHEW AND LUKE.

Who was of Heli. The “who” may refer to Joseph, thus-Joseph was the son, i.e., son-in-law of Heli (or Joachim), because he married his daughter, the Blessed Virgin, and therefore Luke does not use the verb “begat” as S. Matthew does, but the verb “was” (fuit). And again the pronoun “who” may in the Greek clearly be taken with “Jesus”-Jesus was the son, i.e., the grandson of Heli, or Joachim, because He was his offspring, as from a grandfather, through the Blessed Virgin. For having premised that Joseph was not the real, but only the supposed, father of Christ, there was no reason why S. Luke should immediately subjoin the genealogy of Joseph. But rather S. Luke, as well as S. Matthew, means to describe the descent of the Blessed Virgin and Christ according to the flesh, and this is the end and aim of each genealogy-so says S. Augustine (or whoever is the author of the Qust. veteris et novi Testament, bk. i. q. lvi., and bk. ii. q. vi).

Ver. 24.-Which was the son of Janna-Janneus, the second Hyrcanus, if we are to believe Annius and Philo, who was the last leader of the Jews of the line of David, and was of the stock of the Asmoni, or Maccabees; Josephus mentions him in bk. xii. ch. iv. and v., and Eusebius in his Chronicle. For Christ was descended both from high priests, such as Judas, Jonathas, and Simon Maccabus, and from kings, He being King and High Priest, as S. Thomas, and Bonaventure teach, and among the fathers, Nazianzen and Augustine, whom Suarez (loc. cit.) quotes and follows. The Kings of Judah used to take as their wives the daughters of the high priests.

Ver. 27.–Which was the son of Zorobabel, which was the Son of Salathiel. These two are quite distinct from the Zorobabel and Salathiel mentioned by S. Matthew (ch. i.), and described by him as descended from David through Solomon; for these mentioned by S. Luke descend from David through Nathan. So think Pereira, Toletus, Francis Lucas, and others. Perhaps these two descendants of Nathan, being, raised to the princely dignity, borrowed the names of those of Solomon’s family who were illustrious in that state.

Ver. 31.-Which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David. Some think that this Nathan was the prophet who reprehended David for his adultery with Bathsheba (2Ki 12:1.) So think Origen, N. de Lyra, Burgensis, Albertus Magnus, and also S. Augustine (bk. lxxxviii q. lxi). But S. Augustine (Retract. bk. i. ch. xxvi.) rightly withdraws this theory, for this Nathan was born of David and Bathsheba when they were joined in lawful marriage, as appears from 2Sa 5:14 and 1Ch 3:5.

Ver. 38.-Which was the son of God-as handiwork, not as son; for God, even as a potter, formed and fashioned Adam the first man out of the earth. And hence the Arabic version renders “who was from God,” whereas, in other cases, it renders, for “who was,” “son.” S. Luke, then, brings the genealogy of Christ up to Adam, but S. Matthew only to Abraham-the father of the faithful, and founder of the Synagogue.

Why does S. Luke make this addition?

1. S. Athanasius (Discourse on “All things are given unto Me by My Father”) says, “Luke, beginning with the Son of God, went back up to Adam, to show that the body which Jesus assumed had its origin from Adam, who was formed by God.”

2. S. Irenus (book iii. ch. xxxiii.) says, “So was Christ made the beginning of the living, since Adam was made the beginning of the dead; for this cause also S. Luke, beginning the commencement of the generation with the Lord, brings it back to Adam, signifying that they did not regenerate, Him, but He them, into the Gospel of life.”

3. S. Leo (Serm. x. De Nativitate Domini) says, “The evangelist Luke traced the genealogy of the Lord’s race from His birth, to show that even those ages which came before the deluge were joined to this mystery and that all the steps of the succession tended to Him in whom alone was the salvation of all.”

4. Francis Lucas says that it was in order that S. Luke might signify that through Jesus men are led back to God, having been through Adam led away from God,

Symbolically, Euthymius says, “Luke, beginning from the humanity of Christ, leads back to His Divinity, showing that Christ indeed began as man, but that as God He was without beginning.”

5. S. Ambrose gives another reason, “Now, what could be more fair and fitting with respect to Adam who, according to the Apostle, received the figure of Christ, than that the sacred generation should begin with the Son of God and end with the Son of God; and that he that was created should precede in figure, that He that was born might follow in truth; and that he who was made in the image of God should go before, for whose sake the likeness of God came down.”

6. S. Augustine (de Consens. Evang. book ii. ch. iv.) recounts the seventy-seven generations here given, by which, he says, is signified the remission and abolition of all sins whatever, to be made by the Saviour Jesus, according to the words of Christ, “I say not unto thee unto seven times but unto seventy times seven.”

Lastly, notice here the noble pedigree of Christ which S. Luke and S. Matthew trace from Jesus Himself through so many kings, prophets, and patriarchs to Adam, the first made-nay, to God Himself, through four thousand years, in one unbroken line. For there is no prince or king in all the world who can trace his descent in a straight line for a thousand years. As to why Christ deferred His coming and incarnation for so long, Barradi gives ten moral reasons in vol. i., book v., ch. xxxi.

This generation of Christ was prefigured by Jacob’s ladder. So says Rupertus (on Matt. 1.), “This generation is Jacob’s ladder; and the sides of the ladder are the princes and fathers of the generation, Abraham and David, to whom the promise was made. The last step, on which the Lord leaned, is the Blessed Joseph, He leaned on him as a pupil on his master.”

Tropologically, “who was” is significant of the vanity of this world, the life of man passes away, generation by generation, and is straightway turned from the present into the past, from “is” to “was”-So the poet sings:

Adieu to Ilium (fuit Ilium) and the high renown of Teucer’s race.

Fuente: Cornelius Lapide Commentary

3:1 Now {1} in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,

(1) John comes at the time foretold by the prophets and lays the foundation of the gospel which is exhibited unto us, setting forth the true observing of the law and free mercy in Christ, which comes after John, using also baptism which is the outward sign both of regeneration and also forgiveness of sins.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

A. The ministry of John the Baptist 3:1-20

John’s ministry, as Jesus’, did not begin until he was a mature man. This section of the Gospel shows the vital place John played as Messiah’s forerunner.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

III. THE PREPARATION FOR JESUS’ MINISTRY 3:1-4:13

Luke next narrated events that paved the way for Jesus’ public ministry in Galilee and Judea.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

1. The beginning of John’s ministry 3:1-6 (cf. Matthew 3:1-6; Mark 1:1-6)

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Luke made detailed reference to the time when John commenced his ministry to document the reliability of his Gospel. [Note: Compare Thucydides 2:2 for a similarly elaborate chronological synchronism.] Only the reference to Tiberius is necessary to date the beginning of John’s ministry that shortly preceded the commencement of Jesus’ ministry. The other references place these events in a broader historical context.

Pontius Pilate was governor (prefect) of Judea from A.D. 26 to late 36 or early 37. Herod Antipas ended his reign as tetrarch of Galilee that began in 4 B.C. by deposition in A.D. 39. His brother Herod Philip, who ruled territories to the northeast of Palestine from 4 B.C., died in A.D. 34. Present historical evidence does not enable scholars to date Lysanias, the tetrarch of Abilene, an area northeast of Damascus. Annas was Israel’s high priest from A.D. 6 to 15 until the Roman authorities deposed him. However the Jews continued to regard him as the high priest, and he retained his title. [Note: Jeremias, pp. 157-58.] His son-in-law Caiaphas served as the official high priest from A.D. 18 to the spring of 37. Thus the general time frame when John began his ministry was between A.D. 26 and the spring of 37. The specific date, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, is harder to pinpoint, but it was probably A.D. 29. [Note: Hoehner, pp. 29-37.] Then the word of God came to John in the wilderness where he lived (cf. Luk 1:80), and he began his ministry as a prophet (cf. Isa 1:1; Jer 1:1-3; et al.).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 6

THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS.

WHEN the Old Testament closed, prophecy had thrown upon the screen of the future the shadows of two persons, cast in heavenly light. Sketched in outline rather than in detail, still their personalities were sufficiently distinct to attract the gaze and hopes of the intervening centuries; while their differing, though related missions were clearly recognized. One was the Coming ONE, who should bring the “consolation” of Israel, and who should Himself be that Consolation; and gathering into one august title all such glittering epithets as Star, Shiloh, and Emmanuel, prophecy reverently saluted Him as “the Lord,” paying Him prospective homage and adoration. The other was to be the herald of another Dispensation, proclaiming the new King, running before the royal chariot, even as Elijah ran from Ahab to the ivory palace at Jezreel, his Voice then dying away in silence, as he himself passes out of sight behind the throne. Such were the two figures that prophecy, in a series of dissolving views, had thrown forward from the Old into the New Testament; and such was the signal honor accorded to the Baptist, that while many of the Old Testament characters appear as reflections in the New, his is the only human shadow thrown back from the New into the Old.

The forerunner thus had a virtual existence long before the time of the Advent. Known by his synonym of Elias, the prophesied, he became as a real presence, moving here and there among their thoughts and dreams, and lighting up their long night with the beacon-fires of new and bright hopes. His voice seemed familiar, even though it came to them in far-distant echoes, and the listening centuries had caught exactly both its accent and its message. And so the preparer of the way found his own path prepared: for Johns path and “the way of the Lord” were the same; it was the way of obedience and of sacrifice. The two lives were thus thrown into conjunction from the first, the lesser light revolving around the Greater, as they fulfill their separate courses-separate indeed, as far as the human must ever be separated from the Divine, yet most closely related.

Living thus through the pre-Advent centuries, both in the Divine purpose and in the thoughts and hopes of men, so early designated to his heraldic office, “My messenger,” in a singular sense, as no other of mortals could ever be, it is no matter of apology, or even of surprise, that his birth should be attended by so much of the supernatural. The Divine designation seems to imply, almost to demand, a Divine declaration; and in the birth-story of the Baptist the flashes of the supernatural, such as the angelic announcement and the miraculous conception, come with a simple naturalness. The prelude is in perfect symphony with the song. St. Luke is the only Evangelist who gives us the birth-story. The other three speak only of his mission, introducing him to us abruptly, as, like another Moses, he comes down from his new Sinai with the tables of the law in his hands and the strange light upon his face. St. Luke takes us back to the infancy, that we may see the beginnings of things, the Divine purpose enwrapped in swaddling clothes, as it once was set adrift in a rush-plaited ark. Back of the message he puts the man, and back of the man he puts the child-for is not the child a prophecy or invoice of the man?-while all around the child he puts the environment of home, showing us the subtle, powerful influences that touched and shaped the young prophet-life. As a plant carries up into its outmost leaves the ingredients of the rock around which its fibers cling, so each upspringing life-even the life of a prophet-carries into its farthest reaches the unconscious influence of its home associations. And so St. Luke sketches for us that quiet home in the hill-country, whose windows opened and whose doors turned toward Jerusalem, the “city of the great” and invisible “King.” He shows us Zacharias and Elisabeth, true saints of God, devout of heart and blameless of life, down into whose placid lives an angel came, rippling them with the excitements of new promises and hopes. Where could the first meridian of the New Dispensation run better than through the home of these seers of things unseen, these watchers for the dawn? Where could be so fitting a receptacle for the Divine purpose, where it could so soon and so well ripen? Had not God elected them to this high honor, and Himself prepared them for it? Had He not purposely kept back all earlier, lower shoots, that their whole growth should be upward, one reaching out towards heaven, like the palm, its fruit clustering around its outmost branches? We can easily imagine what intense emotion the message of the angel would produce, and that Zacharias would not so much miss the intercourse of human speech now that Gods thoughts were audible in his soul. What loving preparation would Elisabeth make for this child of hers, who was to be “great in the sight of the Lord!” what music she would strike out from its name, “John” (the Grace of Jehovah), the name which was both the-sesame and symbol of the New Dispensation! How her eager heart would outrun the slow months, as she threw herself forward in anticipation among the joys of maternity, a motherhood so exalted! And why did she hide herself for the five months, but that she might prepare herself for her great mission? That in her seclusion she might hear more distinctly the voices that spake to her from above, or that in the silence she might hear her own heart sing?

But neither the eagerness of Elisabeth nor the dumbness of Zacharias is allowed to hasten the Divine purpose. That purpose, like the cloud of old, accommodates itself to human conditions, the slow processions of the humanities; and not until the time is “full” does the hope become a realization, and the infant voice utter its first cry. And now is gathered the first congregation of the new era. It is but a family gathering, as the neighbors and relatives come together for the circumcising of the child-which rite was always performed on the corresponding day of the week after its birth; but it is significant as being the first of those ever-widening circles that moving outwards from its central impulse, spread rapidly over the land, as they are now rapidly spreading over all lands. Zacharias, of course, was present; but mute and deaf, he could only sit apart, a silent spectator. Elisabeth, as we may gather from various references and hints, was of modest and retiring disposition, fond of putting herself in the shade, of standing behind; and so now the conduct of the ceremony seems to have fallen into the hands of some of the relatives. Presuming that the general custom will be observed, that the first-born child will take the name of the father, they proceed to name it “Zacharias.” This, however, Elisabeth cannot allow, and with an emphatic negative, she says, “Not so; but he shall be called John.” Persistent still in their own course, and not satisfied with the mothers affirmation, the friends turn to the aged and mute priest, and by signs ask how they shall name the child (and had Zacharias heard the conversation, he certainly would not have waited for their question, but would have spoken or written at once); and Zacharias, calling for the writing-table, which doubtless had been his close companion, giving him his only touch of the other world for the still nine months, wrote, “His name is John.” Ah, they are too late! The child was named even long before its birth, named, too, within the Holy Place of the Temple, and by an angel of God. “John” and “Jesus,” those two names, since the visit of the Virgin, have been like two bells of gold, throwing waves of music across heart and home, ringing their welcome to “the Christ who is to be,” the Christ who is now so near. “His name is John”; and with that brief stroke of his pen Zacharias half rebukes these intrusions and interferences of the relatives, and at the same time makes avowal of his own faith. And as he wrote the name “John,” his present obedience making atonement for a past unbelief, instantly the paralyzed tongue was loosed, and he spake, blessing God, throwing the name of his child into a psalm; for what is the “Benedictus” of Zacharias but “John” written large and full, one sweet and loud magnifying of “the Grace and Favor of Jehovah?”

It is only a natural supposition that when the inspiration of the song had passed away, Zacharias speech would begin just where it was broken off, and that he would narrate to the guests the strange vision of the Temple, with the angels prophecy concerning the child. And as the guests depart to their own homes, each one carries the story of this new Apocalypse, as he goes to spread the evangel, and to wake among the neighboring hills the echoes of Zachariass song. No wonder that fear came upon all that dwelt round about, and that they who pondered these things in their hearts should ask, “What then shall this child be?”

And here the narrative of the childhood suddenly ends, for with two brief sentences our Evangelist dismisses the thirty succeeding years. He tells us that “the hand of the Lord was with the child,” doubtless arranging its circumstances, giving it opportunities, preparing it for the rugged manhood and the rugged mission which should follow in due course; and that “the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit,” the very same expression he afterwards uses in reference to the Holy Child, an expression we can best interpret by the angels prophecy, “He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mothers womb.” His native strength of spirit was made doubly strong by the touch of the Divine Spirit, as the iron, coming from its baptism of fire, is hardened and tempered into steel. And so we see that in the Divine economy even a consecrated childhood is a possible experience; and that it is comparatively infrequent is owing rather to our warped views, which possibly may need some readjustment, than to the Divine purpose and provision. Is the child born into the Divine displeasure, branded from its birth with the mark of Cain? Is it not rather born into the Divine mercy, and all enswathed in the abundance of Divine love? True, it is born of a sinful race, with tendencies to self-will which may lead it astray; but it is just as true that it is born within the covenant of grace; that around its earliest and most helpless years is thrown the aegis of Christs atonement; and that these innate tendencies are held in check and neutralized by what is called “prevenient grace.” In the struggle for that child-life are the powers of darkness the first in the field, outmarching and out-maneuvering the powers of light? Why, the very thought is half-libelous. Heavens touch is upon the child from the first. Ignore it as we may, deny it as some will, yet back in lifes earliest dawn the Divine Spirit is brooding over the unformed world, parting its firmaments of right and wrong, and fashioning a new Paradise. Is evil the inevitable? Must each life taste the forbidden fruit before it can attain to a knowledge of the good? In other words, is sin a great though dire necessity? If a necessity, then it is no longer sin, and we must seek for another and more appropriate name. No; childhood is Christs purchased and peculiar possession; and the best type of religious experience is that which is marked by no rapid transitions, which breaks upon the soul softly and sweetly as a dawn, its beginnings imperceptible, and so unremembered. So not without meaning is it that right at the gate of the New Dispensation we find the cradle of a consecrated childhood. Placed there by the gate, so that all may see it, and placed in the light, so that all may read it, the childhood of the Baptist tells us what our childhood might oftener be, if only its earthly guardians whose hands are so powerful to impress and mould the plastic soul-were, like Zacharias and Elisabeth, themselves prayerful, blameless, and devout.

Now the scene shifts; for we read he “was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel.” From the fact that this clause is intimately connected with the preceding, “and the child grew and waxed strong in spirit”-the two clauses having but one subject-some have supposed that John was but a child when he turned away from the parental roof and sought the wilderness. But this does not follow. The two parts of the sentence are only separated by a comma, but that pause may bridge over a chasm wide enough for the flow of numerous years, and between the childhood and the wilderness the narrative would almost compel us to put a considerable space. As his physical development was, in mode and proportion, purely human, with no hint of anything unnatural or even supernatural, so we may suppose was his mental and spiritual development. The voice must become articulate; it must play upon the alphabet, and turn sound into speech. It must learn, that it may think; it must study, that it may know. And so the human teacher is indispensable. Children reared of wolves may learn to bark, but, in spite of mythology, they will not build cities and found empires. And where could the child find better instructors than in his own parents, whose quiet lives had been passed in an atmosphere of prayer, and to whom the very jots and tittles of the law were familiar and dear? Indeed, we can scarcely suppose that after having prepared Zacharias and Elisabeth for their great mission, working what is something like a miracle, that she and no one else shall be the mother of the forerunner, the child should then be torn away from its natural guardians before the processes of its education are complete. It is true they were both “well stricken in years,” but that phrase would cover any period from threescore years and upwards, and to that three score the usual longevity of the Temple ministrants would easily allow another twenty years to be added. May we not, then, suppose that the child-Baptist studied and played under the parental roof, the bright focus to which their hopes, and thoughts, and prayers converged; that here, too, he spent his boyhood and youth, preparing for that priestly office to which his lineage entitled and designated him? For why should not the “messenger of the Lord” be priest as well? We have no further mention of Zacharias and Elisabeth, but it is not improbable that their death was the occasion of Johns retirement to the deserts, now a young man, perhaps, of twenty years.

According to custom, John now should have been introduced and consecrated to the priesthood, twenty years being the general age of the initiates; but in obedience to a higher call, John renounces the priesthood, and breaks with the Temple at once and for ever. Retiring to the deserts, which, wild and gloomy, stretch westward from the Dead Sea, and assuming the old prophet garb-a loose dress of camels hair, bound with a thong of leather-the student becomes the recluse. Inhabiting some mountain cave, tasting only the coarse fare that nature offered-locusts and wild honey-the new Elias has come and has found his Cherith; and here, withdrawn far from “the madding crowd” and the incessant babble of human talk, with no companions save the wild beasts and the bright constellations of that Syrian sky, as they wheel round in their nightly dance, the lonely man opens his heart to Gods great thoughts and purposes, and by constant prayer keeps his clear, trumpet voice in drill. Evidently, John had seen enough of so-called “society,” with its cold conventionalities and hypocrisies; his keen eye had seen only too easily the hollowness and corruption that lay beneath the outer gloss and varnish-the thin veneer that but half concealed the worminess and rottenness that lay beneath. John goes out into the desert like another scapegoat, bearing deep within his heart the sins of his nation-sins, alas, which are yet unrepented of and unforgiven! It was doubtless thoughts like these, and the constant brooding upon them, which gave to the Baptist that touch of melancholy that we can detect both in his features and his speech. Austere in person, with a wail in his voice like the sighing of the wind, or charged at times with suppressed thunders, the Baptist reminds us of the Peri, who-

“At the gate Of Eden stood disconsolate.”

Sin had become to John an awful fact. He could see nothing else. The fragments of the laws broken tables strewed the land, even the courts of the Temple itself, and men were everywhere tripping against them and falling. But John did see something else; it was the day of the Lord, now, very near, the day that should come scathing and burning “as a furnace,” unless, meanwhile, Israel should repent. So the prophet mused, and as be mused the fire burned within his soul, even the fire of the Refiner, the fire of God.

Our Evangelist characterizes the opening of Johns ministry with an official word. He calls it a “showing,” a “manifestation,” putting upon the very word the stamp and sanction of a Divine appointment. He is careful, too, to mark the time, so giving the Gospel story its place among the chronologies of the world; which he does in a most elaborate way. He first reads the time on the horoscope of the Empire, whose swinging pendulum was a rising or a falling throne; and he states that it was “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,” counting the two years of his joint rule with Augustus. Then, as if that were not enough, he notes the hour as indicated on the four quarters of the Hebrew commonwealth, the hour when Pilate, Herod, Philip, and Lysanias were in conjunction, ruling in their divided heavens. Then, as if that even were not enough, he marks the ecclesiastical hour as indicated by the marble time-piece of the Temple; it was-when Annas and Caiaphas held jointly the high priesthood. What is the meaning of this elaborate mechanism, wheels within wheels? Is it because the hour is so important, that it needs the hands of an emperor, a governor, three tetrarchs, and two high priests to point it? Ewald is doubtless right in saying that St. Luke, as the historian, wished “to frame the Gospel history into the great history of the world” by giving precise dates; but if that were the Evangelists main reason, such an accumulation of time-evidence were scarcely necessary; for what do the subsequent statements add to the precision of the first-“In the fifteenth year of Tiberius?” We must, then, seek for the Evangelists meaning elsewhere. Among the oldest of the Hebrew prophecies concerning the Messiah was that of Jacob. Closing his life, as Moses did afterwards, with a wonderful vision, he looked down on the far-off years, and speaking of the coming “Seed,” he said, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come”. {Gen 49:10} Might not this prophecy have been in the thought of the Evangelist when he stayed so much longer than his wont to note times and seasons? Why does he mention Herod and Pilate, Philip and Lysanias, but to show how the scepter has, alas! departed from Judah, and the lawgiver from between his feet, and how the chosen land is torn to pieces by the Roman eagles? And why does he name Annas and Caiaphas, but to show how the same disintegrating forces are at work even within the Temple, when the rightful high priest can be set aside and superseded by the nominee of a foreign and a Pagan power? Verily “the glory has departed from Israel”; and if St. Luke introduces foreign emperors, tetrarchs, and governors, it is that they may ring a muffled peal over the grave of a dead nation, a funeral knell, which, however, shall be the signal for the coming of the Shiloh, and the gathering of the people unto Him.

Such were the times-times of disorganization, disorder, and almost despair-when the word of God came unto John in the wilderness. It came “upon” him, as it literally reads, probably in one of those wonderful theophanies, as when God spake to Moses from the flaming bush, or as when He appeared to Elijah upon Horeb, sending him back to an unfinished task. John obeyed. Emerging from his wilderness retreat, clad in his strange attire, spare in build, his features sharp and worn with fasting, his long, disheveled hair telling of his Nazarite vow, he moves down to the Jordan like an apparition. His appearance is everywhere hailed with mingled curiosity and delight. Crowds come in ever-increasing numbers, not one class only, but all classes-priests, soldiers, officials, people-until it seemed as if the cities had emptied themselves into the Jordan valley. And what went they “out for to see?” “A reed shaken with the wind?” A prophesier of smooth things? A preacher of revolt against tyranny? Nay; John was no wind-shaken reed; he was rather the heavenly wind itself, swaying the multitudes at will, and bending hearts and consciences into penitence and prayer. John was no preacher of revolt against the powers that be; in his mind, Israel had revolted more and more, and he must bring them back to their allegiance, or himself die in the attempt. John was no preacher of smooth things; there was not even the charm of variety about his speech. The one burden of his message was, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” But the effect was marvelous. The lone voice from the wilderness swept over the land like the breath of God. Borne forwards on a thousand lips, it echoed through the cities and penetrated into remotest places. Judaea, Samaria, arid even distant Galilee felt the quiver of the strange voice, and even from the shore of the Northern Sea men came to sit at the feet of the new teacher, and to call themselves Johns disciples. So widespread and so deep was the movement, it sent its ripples even within the royal palace, awaking the curiosity, and perhaps the conscience, of Herod himself. It was a genuine revival of religion, such as Judaea had not witnessed since the days of Ezra, the awaking of the national conscience and of the national hope.

Perhaps it would be difficult, by any analysis of ours, to discover or to define the secret of Johns success. It was the resultant, not of one force, but of many. For instance, the hour was favorable. It was the Sabbatic year, when field-work was in the main suspended, and men everywhere had leisure, mind and hand lying, as it were, fallow. Then, too, the very dress of the Baptist would not be without its influence, especially on a mind so sensitive to form and color as the Hebrew mind was. Dress to them was a form of duty. They were accustomed to weave into their tassels sacred symbols, so making the external speak of the eternal. Their hands played on the parti-colored threads most faithfully and sacredly; for were not these the chords of Divine harmonies? But here is one who discards both the priestly and the civilian dress, and who wears, instead, the rough camels-hair robe of the old prophets. The very dress would thus appeal most powerfully to their imagination, carrying back their thoughts to the time of the Theocracy, when Jehovah was not silent as now, and when Heaven was so near, speaking by some Samuel or Elijah. Are those days returning? they would ask. Is this the Elias who was to come and restore all things? Surely it must be. And in the rustle of the Baptists robe they heard the rustle of Elijahs mantle, dropping a second time by these Jordan banks. Then, too, there was the personal charm of the man. John was young, if years are our reckoning, for he counted but thirty; but in his case the verve and energy of youth were blended with the discretion and saintliness of age. What was the world to him, its fame, its luxury and wealth? They were only the dust he shook from his feet, as his spirit sighed for and soared after Heavens better things. He asks nothing of earth but her plainest fare, a couch of grass, and by-and-by a grave. Then, too, there was a positiveness about the man that would naturally attract, in a drifting, shifting, vacillating age. The strong will is magnetic; the weaker wills follow and cluster round it, as swarming bees cluster around their queen. And John was intensely positive. His speech was clear-cut and incisive, with a tremendous earnestness in it, as if a “Thus saith the Lord” were at his heart. Johns mood was not the subjunctive, where his words could eddy among the “mays” and “mights”; it was plainly the indicative, or better still, the imperative. He spoke as one who believed, and who intensely felt what he believed. Then, too, there was a certain nobleness about his courage. He knew no rank, no party; he was superior to all. He feared God too much to have any fear of man. He spake no word for the sake of pleasing, and he kept back no word-even the hot rebuke-for fear of offending. Truth to him was more than titles, and right was the only royalty. How he painted the Pharisees-those shiny, slimy men, with creeping, sinuous ways-with that dark epithet “brood of vipers!”

With what a fearless courage he denounced the incest of Herod! He will not level down Sinai, accommodating it to royal passions! Not he. “It is not lawful for thee to have her”-such were his words, that rolled in upon Herods conscience like a peal of Sinais thunder, telling him that law was law, that right was more than might, and purity more than power. Then, too, there was something about his message that was attractive. That word “the kingdom of heaven” struck upon the national heart like a bell, and set it vibrating with new hopes, and awaking all kinds of beautiful dreams of recovered pre-eminence and power.

But while all these were auxiliaries, factors, and co-efficients in the problem of the Baptists success, they are not sufficient in themselves to account for that success. It is not difficult for a man of superior mental attainment, and of strong individuality, to attract a following, especially if that following be in the direction of self-interest. The emotions and passions of humanity lie near the surface; they can be easily swept into a storm by the strong or by the pathetic voice. But to reach the conscience, to lift up the veil, and to pass within to that Most Holy of the human soul is what man, unaided, cannot do. Only the Divine Voice can break those deep silences of the heart; or if the human voice is used the power is not in the words of human speech-those words, even the best, are but the dead wires along which the Divine Voice moves-it is the power of God.

“Some men live near to God, as my right arm Is near to me; and then they walk about Mailed in full proof of faith, and bear a charm That mocks at fear, and bars the door on doubt, And dares the impossible.”

Just such a man was the Baptist. He was a “man of God.” He lived, and moved, and had his being in God. Self to him was an extinct passion. Envy, pride, ambition, jealousy, these were unknown tongues; his pure soul understood not their meaning. Like his great prototype, “the Spirit of the Lord God” was upon him. His life was one conscious inspiration; and John himself had been baptized with the baptism of which he spoke, but which he himself could not give, the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire. This only will account for the wonderful effects produced, by his preaching. John, in his own experience, had antedated Pentecost, receiving the “power from on high,” and as he spoke it was with a tongue of fire, a voice in whose accent and tone the people could detect the deeper Voice of God.

But if John could not baptize with the higher baptism, usurping the functions of the One coming after, he could, and he did, institute a lower, symbolic baptism of water, that thus the visible might lead up to the invisible. In what mode Johns baptism was administered we cannot tell, nor is it material that we should know. We do know, however, that the baptism of the Spirit-and in Johns mind the two were closely related-was constantly referred to in Scripture as an effusion, a “pouring out,” a sprinkling, and never once as an immersion. And what was the “baptism of fire” to the mind of John? Was it not that which the prophet Isaiah had experienced, when the angel touched his lips with the live coal taken from the altar, pronouncing over him the great absolution, “Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taketh away, and thy sin purged?” {Isa 6:7} At best, the baptism of water is but a shadow of the better thing, the outward symbol of an inward grace. We need not quarrel about modes and forms. Scripture has purposely left them indeterminate, so that we need not wrangle about them. There is no need that we exalt the shadow, leveling it up to the substance; and still less should we level it down, turning it into a playground for the schools.

Thus far the lives of Jesus and John have lain apart. One growing up in the hill-country of Galilee, the other in the hill-country of Judaea, and then in the isolation of the wilderness, they have never looked in each others face, though they have doubtless heard often of each others mission. They meet at last. John had been constantly telling of ONE who was coming after-“after,” indeed, in order of time, but “before,” infinitely before, in preeminence and authority. Mightier than he, He was the Lord. John would deem it an honor to kneel down before so august a Master, to untie and bear away His shoes; for in such a Presence servility was both becoming and ennobling. With such words as these the crier in the wilderness had been transferring the peoples thought from himself, and setting their hearts, listening for the Coming One, so preparing and broadening His way. Suddenly, in one of the pauses of his ministrations, a Stranger presents Himself, and asks that the rite of baptism may be administered to Him. There is nothing peculiar about His dress; He is younger than the Baptist-much younger, apparently, for the rough, ascetic life has prematurely aged him-but such is the grace and dignity of His person, such the mingled “strength and beauty” of His manhood, that even John, who never quailed in the presence of mortal before, is awed and abashed now. Discerning the innate Royalty of the Stranger, and receiving a monition from the Higher World, with which he kept up close correspondence, the Baptist is assured that it is He, the Lord and Christ. Immediately his whole manner changes. The voice that has swept over the land like a whirlwind, now is hushed, subdued, speaking softly, deferentially, reverentially. Here is a Presence in which his imperatives all melt away and disappear, a Will that is infinitely higher than his own, a Person for whom his baptism is out of place. John is perplexed; he hesitates, he demurs. “I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?” and John, Elias-like, would fain have wrapped his mantle around his face, burying out of sight his little “me,” in the presence of the Lord. But Jesus said, “Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness”. {Mat 3:15}

The baptism of Jesus was evidently a new kind of baptism, one in which the usual formulas were strangely out of place; and the question naturally arises, Why should Jesus submit to, and even ask for, a baptism that was so associated with repentance and sin? Could there be any place for repentance, any room for confession, in the Sinless One? John felt the anomaly, and so shrank from administering the rite, till the reply of Jesus put His baptism on different ground-ground altogether clear of any personal demerit. Jesus asked for baptism not for the washing away of sin, but that He might “fulfill all righteousness.” He was baptized, not for His own sake, but for the worlds sake. Coming to redeem humanity, He would identify Himself with that humanity, even the sinful humanity that it was. Son of God, He would become a true Son of man, that through His redemption all other sons of men might become true sons of God. Bearing the sins of many, taking away the sin of the world, that heavy burden lay at His heart from the first; He could not lay it down until He left it nailed to His cross. Himself knowing no sin, He yet becomes the Sin-offering, and is “numbered among the transgressors.” And as Jesus went to the cross and into the grave mediatorially, as Humanitys Son, so Jesus now passes into the baptismal waters mediatorially, repenting for that world whose heart is still hard, and whose eyes are dry of godly tears, and confessing the sin which He in love has made His own, the “sin of the world,” the sin He has come to make atonement for and to bear away.

Such is the meaning of the Jordan baptism, in which Jesus puts the stamp of Divinity upon Johns mission, while John bears witness to the sinlessness of Jesus. But a Higher Witness came than even that of John; for no sooner was the rite administered, and the river-bank regained, than the heavens were opened, and the Spirit of God, in the form of a fiery dove, descended and alighted on the head of Jesus; while a Voice out of the Unseen proclaimed, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And so the Son of man receives the heavenly, as well as the earthly baptism. Baptized with water, He is new baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and anointed with the unction of the Holy One. But why should the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus in the form of a dove, and afterwards upon the disciples in the form of cloven tongues of fire? We can understand the symbolism of the cloven tongues; for was not their mission to preach and teach, spreading and establishing the kingdom by a consecrated speech-the Divine word carried forward by the human voice? What, then, is the meaning of the dove-form? Does it refer to the dove of the Old Dispensation, which bearing the olive-leaf in its mouth, preached its Gospel to the dwellers in the ark, telling of the abatement of the angry waters, and of a salvation that was near? And was not Jesus a heavenly Dove, bearing to the world the olive-branch of reconciliation and of peace, proclaiming the fuller, wider Gospel of mercy and of love? The supposition, at any rate, is a possible one; while the, words of Jesus would almost make it a probable one; for speaking of this same baptism of the Spirit, He says-and in His words we can hear the beat and whir of dove-wings-“He anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives to set at liberty them that are bruised.” {Luk 4:18}

The interview between Jesus and John was but brief, and in all probability final. They spend the following night near to each other, but apart. The day after, John sees Jesus walking, but the narrative would imply that they did not meet. John only points to Him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God; which taketh away the sin of the world”; and they part, each to follow his separate path, and to accomplish his separate mission.

“The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Such was Johns testimony to Jesus, in the moment of his clearest illumination. He saw in Jesus, not as one learned writer would have us suppose, the sheep of Davids pastoral, its life encircled with green pastures and still waters-not this, but a lamb, “the lamb of God,” the Paschal Lamb, led all uncomplaining to the slaughter, and by its death bearing away sin-not either the sin of a year or the sin of a race, but “the sin of the world.” Never had prophet so prophesied before; never had mortal eye seen so clearly and so deeply into Gods great mystery of mercy. How, then, can we explain that mood of disappointment and of doubt which afterwards fell upon John? What does it mean that from his prison he should send two of his disciples to Jesus with the strange question, “Art Thou He that cometh, or look we for another?”. {Luk 7:19} John is evidently disappointed-yes, and dejected too; and, the Elias still, Herods prison is to him the juniper of the desert. He thought the Christ would be one like unto himself, crying in the wilderness, but with a louder voice and more penetrating accent. He would be some ardent Reformer, with axe in hand, or fan, and with baptism of fire. But lo, Jesus comes so different from his thought-with no axe in hand that he can see, with no baptism of fire that he can hear of, a Sower rather than a Winnower, scattering thoughts, principles, beatitudes, and parables, telling not so much of “the wrath to come” as of the love that is already come, if men will but repent and receive it-that John is fairly perplexed and actually sends to Jesus for some word that shall be a solvent for his doubts.

It only shows how this Elias, too, was a man of like passions with ourselves, and that even prophets eyes were sometimes dim, reading Gods purposes with a blurred vision. Jesus returns a singular answer. He says neither Yes nor No; but He goes out and works His accustomed miracles, and then dismisses the two disciples with the message, “Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the Gospel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me.” These words are in part a quotation from Johns favorite prophet, Isaiah, who emphasized as no other prophet did the evangelistic character of Christs mission-which characteristic John seems to have overlooked. In his thought the Christ was Judge, the great Refiner, sifting the base from the pure, and casting it into some Gehenna of burnings. But Jesus reminds John that mercy is before and above judgment; that He has come, “not to condemn the world,” but to save it, and to save it, not by reiterations of the law, but by a manifestation of love. Ebal and Sinai have had their word; now Gerizim and Calvary must speak.

And so this greatest of the prophets was but human, and therefore fallible. He saw the Christ, no longer afar off, but near-yea, present; but he saw in part, and he prophesied in part. He did not see the whole Christ, or grasp the full purport of His mission. He stood on the threshold of the kingdom; but the least of those who should pass within that kingdom should stand on a higher vantage-ground, and so be greater than he. Indeed, it seems scarcely possible that John could have fully understood Jesus; the two were so entirely different. In dress, in address, in mode of life, in thought, the two were exact opposites. John occupies the border-region between the Old and the New; and though his life appears in the New, he himself belongs rather to the Old Dispensation. His accent is Mosaic, his message a tritonomy, a third giving of the law. When asked the all-important question, “What shall we do?” John laid stress on works of charity, and by his metaphor of the two coats he showed that men should endeavor to equalize their mercies. And when Publicans and soldiers ask the same question John gives a sort of transcript of the old tables, striking the negatives of duty: “Extort no more than that which is appointed you”; “Do violence to no man.” Jesus would have answered in the simple positive that covered all classes and all cases alike: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” But such was the difference between the Old and the New: the one said, “Do, and thou shalt live”; the other said, “Live, and thou shalt do.” The voice of John awoke the conscience, but he could not give it rest. He was the preparer of the way; Jesus was the Way, as He was the Truth and the Life. John was the Voice; Jesus was the Word. John must “decrease” and disappear; Jesus must “increase,” filling all times and all climes with His glorious, abiding presence.

But the mission of John is drawing to a close and dark clouds are gathering in the west. The popular idol still, a hostile current has set against him. The Pharisees, unforgetting and unforgiving, are deadly bitter, creeping across his path, and hissing out their “Devil”; while Herod, who in his better moods had invited the Baptist to his palace, now casts him into prison. He will silence the voice he has failed to bribe, the voice that beat against the chambers of his revelry, like a strange midnight gust, and that set him trembling like an aspen. We need not linger over the last sad tragedy-how the royal birthday was kept, with a banquet to the State officials; how the courtesan daughter of Herodias came in and danced before the guests; and how the half-drunken Herod swore a rash oath, that he would give her anything she might ask, up to the half of his kingdom. Herodias knew well what wine and passion would do for Herod. She even guessed his promise beforehand, and had given full directions to her daughter; and soon as the rash oath had fallen from his lips-before he could recall or change his words-sharp and quick the request is made, “Give me here John Baptists head in a charger.” There is a momentary conflict, and Herod gives the fearful word. The head of John is brought into the banquet-hall before the assembled guests-the long flowing locks, the eyes that even in death seemed to sparkle with the fire of God; the lips sacred to purity and truth, the lips that could not gloss a sin, even the sin of a Herod. Yes; it is there, the head of John the Baptist. The courtiers see it, and smile; Herod sees it, but does not smile. That face haunts him; he never forgets it. The dead prophet lives still, and becomes to Herod another conscience.

“And she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came, and took up the corpse, and buried him; and they went and told Jesus”. {Mat 14:11-12} Such is the finis to a consecrated life, and such the work achieved by one man, in a ministry that was only counted by months. Shall not this be his epitaph, recording his faithfulness and zeal, and at the same time rebuking our aimlessness and sloth?-

“He liveth long who liveth well; All other life is short and vain: He liveth longest who can tell Of living most for heavenly gain.”

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary