Jesus did nothing publicly to announce His ministry before this scene. John was sent as His forerunner, to carry the message of true repentance. The public ministry of Jesus was the doorway to the Kingdom of Heaven, and in many ways was the start of it. This meant a passing of the old Davidic Kingdom, and a passing of the Law of Moses. John served under this older covenant, but his service was to herald the New.
For Jesus to become Israel required fulfilling every measure. Thus, to participate in John's baptism was a part of this. Not only did He lend credence to what John preached, but also that the Old Covenant was at an end. John was hardly a stranger to his cousin, Jesus, nor ignorant of the story of His birth and signs. He knew with some degree of conviction his cousin was the Messiah, though he obviously did not know all that was connected with that.
Thus, assuming Jesus was indeed "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," John was looking to Him as the ultimate expression of God's message and will. John knew he was merely the herald, clearly understood he deserved no place in Jesus' Kingdom of Heaven. Thus, when Jesus appeared to be baptized, John argued insistently and persistently against it. This was quite a scene. Finally, Jesus shut down the argument by noting He came to fulfill every jot and tittle of the Law of Moses so He could inaugurate better things.
The instant Jesus arose from beneath the surface of the water, the sky itself was changed. There are no words to describe the unfathomable yet noticeable shift in reality, but John felt the air change. This was no ripping of time and space, but an orderly opening in the wall of separation between fallen Creation and God's perfect Heaven. A visible manifestation of God's own Spirit appeared in this opening, and descended like a dove to rest on Jesus. With it came the authoritative announcement from Heaven's Throne itself this was the very Son of God, someone in Whom the Father of all, Jehovah, had full confidence from the beginning.
We note in passing it's no small matter we see here the unquestionable description of the Trinity. The three elements are plainly marked as separate, yet just as obviously One. Were this the only mention, it would be sufficient to close the door on any arguments against the concept of the Trinity.
Thus, John at this point had fulfilled his central role in history. It's not a matter of no longer having anything to do, for there would always be in this world fallen people in need of the message of repentance and redemption in God's Son. Rather, John's message was now fully formed, for its primary object was fully identified, and all his preaching now pointed to a clearly defined Person as Messiah, the Prince of Heaven. The claim had been declared, and John's life had reached it's climax.
This claim by, and on behalf of, Jesus as the Messiah was not to go unchallenged. Just whose Messiah would He be? Many different messiahs had already come, each with a different message, with differing and conflicting claims. So far, all had died, mostly ignominiously. Being the true Messiah, it was necessary to clarify at the least what He was not.
Led by the Spirit into the Judean Wilderness, the mountainous western rim of the Dead Sea, Jesus began a fast. It mirrored the time Moses spent on the Mountain of God receiving the Law. It must be noted here the mention of 40 days and nights is a common Hebrew phrase rather like our saying "a month or so." It's not meant to be a precise count, because such was not considered important. What was important was the length of time was sufficient to make a full and clean break with the past, to face every human self-doubt, to establish a clarity of purpose and understanding, and more importantly to fulfill the purpose lost on the Nation of Israel. Following their meeting with God at Sinai, they failed consistently and utterly to embrace the purpose God had for them. Thus, because of their rejection of Moses' 40 days with God, they had their 40 years of wandering -- also not to be taken with mathematical precision -- spiritually. Jesus did not wander, but was clearly led of the Spirit.
As this period of intense spiritual examination wound down, the final test must come. Would Jesus be the Messiah predicted in the Messianic Expectations common to the rabbinic traditions of His day? By no means. The Judaism of that day was bereft of spiritual depth, having become a shallow and narrow legalism, whose only concept of Heaven was material comfort. They had exchanged spiritual shalom for a poor shadow. They wanted gold instead of a legacy of revelation; they wanted a bulging dinner table rather than a fullness of the spirit; they wanted mere freedom from disease and pestilence, instead of God's divine power to resist every form of evil; they wanted political control and dominance to crush all others in the dirt, instead of reliance on God to grant power to fulfill His calling across all human political boundaries. While there must have been other temptations we could not name, three primary issues are raised to indicate Jesus rejected the Talmudic brand of Judaism.
Perhaps it was the cool of the morning, as Jesus looked out upon the rocky waste, the perfect time to eat a breakfast of warm bread fresh from the oven. In that day and time the image of "bread" was not a long, squarish loaf as we think of it in the West, but a flat circular disk, rather like a pancake made with yeast. Many of the rocks lying on the surface of the desert looked precisely like that, even in color, sometimes. What it represented was far more. The Talmudic expectations of the Messiah called for Him to supply by miraculous power just this very thing; a particular legend called for the stones of the wilderness to be turned into bread, as a way of representing an unimaginable plenitude of food.
There's nothing sinful about food, and a good appetite was created by God as part of good physical health. Rather, there is sin in taking a shortcut to godlike power, and to win over the Judean masses with the one thing which most worried them, and many other people in the world: plentiful food. Give them bread, and they'll eat out of your hands. Do it by miracle, and all the more will they flock to serve you. Conquering at the head of such a massive army would be a breeze. But Jesus was not a mere food supplier, for though it is necessary for life, it is the Law of God which feeds the soul that mattered most. Better one should starve until this life is extinguished than to betray His will.
Standing on the wall of the Temple Terrace in Jerusalem, there is one corner, the southeast, which jutted out into the Kidron Valley, forming a wall some seventy feet high, we believe. Whether in the flesh or in the spirit hardly mattered; Satan took Jesus there to claim one of those promises, part of "every word which proceeds from the mouth of God" -- the Messiah could not be harmed while engaged in the work of Jehovah (Psalm 91:11-12). Such a spectacular act as jumping off the pinnacle and landing safely on the valley floor below would force the Jews to accept Him. Not just the rabble, but the savvy urbanites, as well. This miracle would forestall any question whether He was the Messiah, and there's some evidence this very act was a part of the legends. It's true the servant of Jehovah can expect everything to work out according to His calling, to overcome every threat which arises as a necessary element of such service. But this would be flinging a challenge in the face of God -- "Bail me out or Your promise will fail." Jesus would not be that kind of Messiah, presenting spectacles simply to amaze. The miraculous power of God exists not merely to meet human need, nor to amaze, but to demonstrate spiritual principles and confirm His Word.
Neither do we need to know where was this "exceedingly high mountain," only that it was a place sufficient to display some extent of human habitation in the world. It represented the whole of humanity, under the various rulers and regimes appointed by God to fulfill the requirements of the Covenant of Noah (Genesis 9): Fallen man must live under civil order, lest God reduce the natural order. At any rate, all of human government outside the Law of Moses was a matter of sinners keeping other sinners under control, never mind how imperfectly; that was God's command for fallen men. It was this fallen nature of government which gave birth to the constant threat of dominating Israel. In their failure to see it was their own sins which always brought outside conquests of Israel, the false Talmudic expectations of the Messiah demanded He once and for all end this threat. He must become a ruler of all the world, and make them eternally subservient to Israel. Many extravagant promises of "10 Gentile slaves for every Jew" and other racist nonsense pervaded this idea. Rather than bring the light of God's revelation to all mankind, rabbis spoke dreamily of crushing all under their feet.
Jesus would not be that sort of Messiah, either. Rather, He would conquer the hearts of men, uniting them under His spiritual rule, a rule which ignored nation, race, government, and laws of men. It would be the true Kingdom of Heaven, not a mere "heavenly" kingdom. The laws and governing of fallen mankind in this world are of no concern to the the servants of the King. Those matters are the Father's alone; His servants are devoted to His rule and reign, and leave such matters in His care. Even Talmudic rabbis understood the Covenant of Noah, and had formulated seven basic commandments it required. Yet they lost their understanding of what it was all about.
That Jesus would have known the fullness of rabbinic teaching is hardly in doubt. With His auspicious birth and all the signs, it's hard to imagine His extended family would not do all they could to insure He had gotten a decent rabbinical education. There were numerous rabbinical colleges throughout the world, wherever Jews lived. While some were more prestigious than others, just about all of them would have the same basic curriculum. It would have been loaded with Talmudic teachings, and it was clear Jesus from age 12 knew the heart of the matter, already. Still, by the time He was around 30 years old, He would have studied the whole Old Testament rather intensively, along with the various documents making up the Talmud.
He would have understood well beforehand the root nature of all fallen human desire could be narrowed down to three things: Lust of the Flesh, Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life. The first can be described as all the insistent human appetites having been perverted, providing an excuse for ignoring God's provision to meet them. The second notes there could never be enough discovery and spectacle to sate the fallen human curiosity. The last depicts mankind's natural dominance over all other living things, even over the very earth itself. It brings unspeakable pride, but cannot not keep away death.
We see this understanding echoed in the Fall (Genesis 3:6) as the basis for tempting Eve, and declared later by the Apostle John (1 John 2:16). It was the same three elements of fallen nature tested in the Wilderness Temptation of Christ, the same three elements Talmudism had embraced by exchanging the abundant riches of Heaven for a poor shadow of worldly comfort. These means were the path Satan offered mankind to gain their loyalty, but that was not sufficient to back his claim over mankind. Jesus spoke with the authority of the Son, and remanded Satan to his rightful place under Him. Christ not only denied Satan's impudent claim, but would negate it in His choice to take the mystical path of Jehovah, through death to eternal power.
Finally, we note here Satan's name in the text comes from the term, "to pierce through." What could be fatal in the rough hands of a mere soldier can also be healing in the hands of the skilled surgeon. To cut through something is to see what it's made of, to explore its substance. Satan pierces all of us, but by clinging to Christ, we force our Enemy -- the Tempter, the Adversary, the Deceiver -- to do the work of God in clarifying our faith.
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By Ed Hurst
05 August 2007
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