Grace Community Church
Winchester, VA
Pastor Bradford Reaves
Watch this Message: https://youtu.be/kvOMpzSODa4
Introduction
There is a premise in physics called “The Fine-Tuned Universe.” In this premise, it is asserted that there are characteristics of the universe that are virtually unchangeable, and if they were to be changed, the entire universe would be radically different. If, for example, the strong nuclear force were 2% stronger than it is, diprotons would be stable; according to physicist Paul Davies, hydrogen would fuse into them instead of deuterium and helium. This would drastically alter the physics of stars, and make life on earth impossible to exist.
Or take bubbles, for a more “down to earth” example. One of the things I love doing with Noah is blowing bubbles as he chases them. All bubbles are essentially round. Have you ever seen a square bubble or a flat bubble? How about a triangle bubble? When I blow bubbles with Noah every bubble is a sphere. Essentially it is because of something known as surface tension. You see, water has a physical property called surface tension. It wants to stay together and form an equal surface all around. You can’t change that property of water, otherwise, you change the very nature of water.
I want to talk with you about some theological surface tension this morning. That is the divine nature of Christ. For just as there are imperative characteristics in the nature of the universe, so there are irrevocable characteristics of God. Jesus was both fully God and fully man. If you take that nature of Christ and alter His Divine nature in any manner, the entire gospel changes. This is important for you to understand because there were teachers who attempted to lead the early church astray with these things and there are teachers today who are doing the same. It is not enough for me to say, ‘this is how it’s supposed to be,’ and you believe me. You need to be able to see this in Scripture and have a general understanding of why.
We’ve spent the last several weeks examining the ministry of John the Baptist. John is the forerunner of Jesus. His whole purpose is the preparation of the world for Jesus’ arrival. He did that through emerging out of the wilderness (not the religious, social, or political systems) with a message of repentance and baptism. A direct call for people to reject the world and return to God.
Now we come to the only point in Luke’s gospel when John the Baptist and The Lord Jesus are together. This is a key turning point in Luke’s gospel. From here, Jesus will face his temptation in the wilderness before emerging into the spotlight of public ministry. This passage is also one of the most Trinitarian texts in the gospels. As the Father is speaking, the Holy Spirit is descending, and the son is being baptized all at the same time. There is a heresy being taught, known as modalism and it’s gaining popularity today. If you do not have a Trinity, you have the wrong God. It is a heresy that pollutes all the rest of theology. You cannot have Modalism in this event because you have the Son being baptized, the Spirit descending, and the Father speaking simultaneously. So let’s ‘dive in’ (if you pardon the pun) to Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism.
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21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily forms, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased.” 23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, (Luke 3:21–23a ESV)
1. Jesus’ Baptism Identifies Himself With Your Baptism
The first thing Luke does is connect the baptism of all the people who came down to the river with John to be baptized. Luke says, “When all the people were baptized...” This is the moment when Jesus’ public ministry begins; not a moment earlier. There were multitudes of people coming down to the river for baptism. In fact, Matthew tells us in Matthew 3:5 that all of Jerusalem was coming down. This was a bit of hyperbole here, but the point is that there was a mass of people hungry for change and expectancy of the coming messiah because of John’s ministry. And so many people were coming to John to be baptized as John preached a message of baptism and repentance.
This is the point, after living 30 years in obscurity that Jesus emerges into public ministry. So here at the height of John's ministry, people are coming, being baptized. Jesus comes. He looks like everybody else. There's no halo. There's no emanating Shekinah glory. There's no special messianic robe that He wears. He is like everybody else. He comes down and He gets in line with the crowd and John doesn't recognize Him until the Holy Spirit reveals it to John.
So what does John do? The other gospels fill in some blanks for us, for instance in Matthew it says,
14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. (Matthew 3:14–15 ESV)
Such humility, even in the height of his ministry, John still recognizes that he is dependent on and a servant to Jesus. Why? Because John recognized that his ministry was preaching a baptism of repentance. He’s telling everyone that to be prepared for the coming of Christ, admit your sins, admit that you are alienated from God, and be cleansed to receive Christ. Now Jesus shows up on the scene and John sees that the tables must now be turned on him. Even as the great of prophets that ever lived, John recognized that he too was in need of repentance and salvation. Only Jesus can take away sins and John recognized this. “I’m the one that needs to be baptized.”
There are some heresies both in the early church and today that teach that Jesus was a sinner like everyone else up to the point of his baptism. When the Spirit descended that’s when Jesus took on his divine nature. They even go as far as to say that you too can become divine like Jesus. Remember the importance that we understand even the smallest variances in the surface tension can cause the whole bubble to blow. This is one of those places. If Jesus was a sinner like everyone else, and he became divine through baptism and we can too, then we don’t need God’s intervention.
How do you deal with this? You just quote the fact that the child who is going to be born to you, Matthew 1, shall be called Immanuel, which is God with us. He was God from the very beginning and also the testimony of the angel Gabriel to Mary, "This holy child." John 1, in the beginning was a the Word… and the Word became flesh. The flesh did not become the Word. You understand?
So the question then is, why is Jesus being baptized for the forgiveness of sins, if he wasn’t a sinner? Joh was concerned that if Christ did this He would be portraying Himself as a sinner and he tried to stop Jesus from doing that. And Jesus turned it around the other way and said, "But, John, this is what God has asked righteous people to do and I'll do it because I do everything that is required by God." You aren’t baptized because of the sin that is living in you, you are baptized because it is God’s righteousness that is living in you and this is the way we proclaim that to the world.
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For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15 ESV)
So what does that have to do with your baptism today. Well, Jesus lived a perfect life on all accounts that that righteousness could be credited to your account.
21 For our sake he made him be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)
On the cross, God treated Jesus as if it were you are your sins on that cross. Without his righteousness from his very conception, the cross would mean nothing. Without a righteous childhood, without a sinless teenager, and without a righteous adult, everything that God requires would not be satisfied. It’s the Holy Lamb of God that put his righteousness to your account when you put your trust in him so that when God opens the Book of Life and
sees beside your name, “paid in full”
2. Jesus’ Baptism Affirmed the Spirit’s Empowerment
So while Jesus is being baptized, Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit descends on him “like a dove." Now does this mean that before Jesus was baptized that he did not have the Holy Spirit? Not at all. The members of the Trinity have been eternally in communion with each other with no breach in their unity. Jesus and the Holy Spirit have always been in perfect communion, so much so that Romans 8:9 calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Christ (cf. Acts 16:7; Gal. 4:6; Phil. 1:19; 1 Peter 1:11). The Spirit was a public pronouncement of the anointing of Christ.
Remember that it was the Holy Spirit that brought conception to Mary (Luke 1:35) and involved in every part of the life of Christ. In a couple of weeks we’ll be with Jesus in Nazareth as he teaches in the synagogue and he’ll quote from Isaiah 11, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.” The work of Christ was always and completely the work of the Trinity.
There has never been anything like this in all of history. Even more so, because of Christ and his baptism here, we too have the baptism in the Holy Spirit as a means to live victoriously as believers. I think this is why so many times the church has become spiritually ineffective. We rely on human means and technology to “create” an experience when what we really need is Holy Spirit empowerment.
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Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. (Isaiah 42:1 ESV)
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ for the purpose of giving glory to Christ by empowering Christ’s followers. What does it mean to baptize people with the Holy Spirit? Of course, Christians are still baptized with water. But this water baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality: the Spirit’s work in a sinner’s life. The Spirit regenerates, giving us new spiritual vitality. The Spirit adopts, claiming us as the children of God. The Spirit sanctifies, making us holy like Christ. The Spirit seals, preserving our faith to the end. The Spirit fills, equipping us for ministry. This is why the baptism of Jesus Christ is a holier baptism: it is the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
Have you experienced this baptism? Every believer does because it is the Holy Spirit who makes a Christian a Christian. Our baptism comes from Jesus Christ, who has the power and authority to send us the Spirit. And this shows the superiority of Christ. Whereas John baptized with water, Jesus baptizes with God the Holy Spirit. This reminds us that only God can do the inward work of salvation that leads to eternal life. We can share the gospel, preach the Word, and reach out in practical deeds of mercy. We can even baptize people with water. We can do all the outward things, but only God can do the inward things, like changing a sinner’s heart. He does this by the Spirit of Christ (Philip Graham Ryken)
John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. (Luke 3:16 ESV)
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But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8 ESV)
Do you ever wonder why so many people oppose Christ’s followers? It isn’t philosophical and it isn’t political. It is spiritual. We have to get this and understand this if we are going to be successful as a church moving into 2021. We’ve witnessed some powerful loosening of the spirits in the last year and this year is not going to be much better; probably worse. If we’re stuck on programs and man-made methods without the anointing of God we will lose the battle. Did you notice in verse 21 that John says that Jesus was praying? The Spirit’s anointing comes with prayer. If Jesus felt it was necessary to pray at such a critical moment, so should we.
“The Holy Spirit is the immediate, peculiar, efficient cause of all external, divine operations and hence, He is the immediate operator of all divine acts of the Son Himself, even on His own human nature. Whatever the Son of God wrought in, by, or upon the human nature, He did it by the Holy Spirit.” (John Owen)
3. Jesus’ Baptism Affirms the Father’s Blessing
At the coming of the Holy Spirit over Jesus, the heavens open up and the voice of the Father speaks His Words of Blessing. “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well please.” This is the climax or the key point to this whole passage. The exaltation of Christ as the only Son of God. The most important thing is what the Father says about the Son, everything else supports that.
So here is the testimony of God as to the nature of Christ, as to the affection He has for Him, and as to His perfection as the sinless one. No one else can this be said of from God. What an inauguration. We just witnessed the inauguration of the 46th president of the United States. Is there universal approval of this man? No. Is there Divine approval? Not without the redemption of Jesus Christ and the sealing of the Holy Spirit. Here at the baptism of Jesus, the Father says, this is my son and I honor him.
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The Father used two words to describe his relationship to the Son—a word of affection and a word of approval. The word of affection is “beloved.” The Son is beloved by the Father, and this is their eternal relationship. The Greek word for “beloved” (agapetos) generally means what it says: “beloved.” However, when it is applied to a son or a daughter, it also means “only.” So the Father was declaring Jesus to be his Son in a unique sense: he is God the eternal Son, the only begotten of the Father. This is what the Father loves to declare, that the Son is the Son—his Son, the Son that he loves.
All of this is to see the unified and eternally unbroken Trinity at work and to point us to God’s salvation us through the work of Jesus. There is something deeply comforting in all this. It demonstrates how powerfully God works for our redemption and also the mutual work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All three Persons are equally concerned for the deliverance of our souls.
From here in Luke, we see a linage of Jesus through the line of Joseph. Interestingly, Matthew traces Jesus' linage back through Mary. So we have the duplicity of Jesus. Fully God, fully man. These attributes cannot be separated or modified in the least. If we do we have broken the surface tension of the perfect God.
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