M j W illiam Serons, Ph.
B Associate Dean Bible Institute of Los Angeles
Spirit of God was to rest in unlimited measure, the chosen King to establish the kingdom of heaven among God’s people. It is doubtless difficult for us to tell to what extent existing circumstances, home training, attendance at the synagogue, and other avenues of knowledge, ministered to the Master’s course of action, and tq what extent His unique knowledge as the Son of God controlled it.' While recognizing as we do the essential and absolute deity of our Lord, it may not be out of place to say that two questions may have been occupying the attetnion of Christ during these years : When would be the proper time to begin the active Messianic work? and, How should it be carried on? If this be true, then the Baptism of Christ answers the question When? and the Temptation of Christ the question, How? All through Christ’s life we find the phrase, “Mine hour is not yet come;’’ and then again, “The hour is come.” From these expressions we would infer that Christ waited for the Father’s intimation and direction as to when to act and speak. Thé report of John the Baptist’s work
HAT the baptism of Christ is an important epoch in the life of the Redeemer is evi dent from the fact that it is the starting point of the com
mon apostolic testimony (“Beginning from the baptism of John, unto the day that he was received up from us, of these must one become a witness with us,” Acts i:22). I. The Corning of Christ from Nazar eth to the Jordan. This is the first men tion of our Lord in the gospels since the visit of the Christ-child to the temple, eight een years before. During all these years of silence our Lord had doubtless been engaged in manual labor, probably as a carpenter in the village of Nazareth. The wonderful knowledge of Scripture which Christ manifested in His visit to the tem ple and in His controversy with the Phari sees leads us to believe that during these waiting years He had become a master of the Old Testament Scriptures, particu larly those which had to do with the Mes sianic office and work. He must have known that He Himself was the prophetic Servant of the Lord, the One on whom the
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