Matthew 3 – 4 Jesus: The Beginning February 24, 2002
The celebration of the resurrection on Easter Sunday is the high point of the Christian calendar. While remembrance of the resurrection is a weekly event, it is, I believe, profitable for the Christian regularly to focus on the extraordinary grace that is evident in Christ’s atonement and the justification accomplished and applied though His death and resurrection. Easter affords us the opportunity to enhance our understanding of the most astonishing event ever recorded in human history. In preparation for resurrection Sunday I want to “paint” with broad strokes the life of Jesus. Primarily using the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), we will briefly touch on the following aspects of Jesus’ life and teaching: the inauguration of the kingdom (Jesus’ baptism, temptation, and the calling of the disciples), the message of the kingdom (the main themes of his teaching), the present King (the immanent and transcendent Jesus), the future King (the turning point in his ministry and the transfiguration), and the “trip wire” (the events that precipitated the crucifixion).
JESUS BAPTISM
Now in those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 3.1-2). This message of the coming kingdom was accompanied by baptism (for theological comments on baptism see my sermon notes for January 3, 2001). The idea that repentance and baptism are separate events is not a biblical idea, neither for John the Baptist nor for the later New Testament writers (cp. Acts 2.37-38). Robert Stein writes: “John’s baptism was essentially ‘ecclesiastical’ in nature. It was not primarily a personal experience performed in splendid isolation for the individual but a corporate rite that involved becoming part of a community awaiting the promised Messiah. Thus the experience of repentance and the rite of baptism were inseparable” (Robert Stein, Jesus the Messiah, p. 93 [if you have not already done so, this would be a good book to read for this series; also, on a devotional level, read James Boice and Philip Ryken, The Heart of the Cross]).
John’s preaching of the coming kingdom and the accompanying baptism associated with repentance, anticipated One who was mightier than himself who would baptize not with water but with the Spirit and fire (Matthew and Luke). The One of whom John spoke would usher in the kingdom of heaven. Those being baptized by John renounced a life of sin and identified themselves with the coming kingdom. Since Jesus had no sin, the symbolism of repentance associated with John’s baptism appears problematic. Indeed, John was reluctant to baptize him; John did so only at Jesus’ instance (Matt 3.14). However, Jesus was not acknowledging personal sin by his baptism, but was associating Himself with the sinfulness of a community that was seeking the kingdom of God.
Jesus’ baptism was the inaugural event of His ministry just as the “cup” was the concluding event of His ministry. That his baptism is not often referred to throughout His teaching ministry does not diminish its importance. This is evident from his comment to sons of Zebedee. When they asked for a position of honor in the coming kingdom, Jesus responded: “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with” (Mark 10.38)? In another context Jesus spoke of his ministry as that which divides men and that He was distressed until his baptism was to be accomplished (cp. Luke 12.50). Thus understood, His baptism must be associated with His vicarious death and passion (cp. ISBE, vol. 1, p. 411).
That the baptism of Jesus was an inaugural event in the ministry of Jesus is also clear from the blessing He receives from his heavenly Father. Matthew 3.16-17 records: At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (cp. Mark 1.10-11). The Spirit whom Jesus would bestow upon others had anointed Him.
The epochal importance of this anointing for Jesus and his awareness of how this experience led to a new period in his life is evident from his first sermon in Nazareth. There, opening the scroll of Isaiah, he selected the following passage from Isaiah 61:1-2: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Lk 4:18-19; compare Acts 10:38). Upon returning the scroll to one of the officers of the synagogue, Jesus said, ‘today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (Lk 4:21). At his baptism Jesus was aware that he had been anointed for a divine task. Serving God quietly as a carpenter in Nazareth was a thing of the past. The Spirit had anointed him, and his messianic mission had begun. (Stein, p. 99)
JESUS’ TEMPTATION
Like the baptism pericope, the temptation of Jesus is recorded in the synoptic gospels. Mark’s reference to the wild beasts in the wilderness suggests that Jesus’ motivation for going into the desert was not contemplative, but confrontative. Stein suggests that Jesus needed to decide what kind of messianic role He would carry out. “In order to plunder Satan’s kingdom, Jesus would have to defeat him (Mark 3:22-27), and resisting the temptation would be the first of his adversary’s defeats (compare Mark 1:21-28, 39; 3:11; 5:1-20; 7:24-30; 9:14-29; and so on)” (Stein, p. 103).
A careful reading of the temptation narrative immediately raises the question of the nature of the temptations. Certainly, there is a mixture of the objective and external events involving an encounter with the person of Satan, and real places such as the wilderness and the temple. At the same time the portrayal of Jesus viewing of the entire world must have been visionary. The third temptation (Matthew) places Jesus on a high mountain where He sees all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. While we know that such a physical place does not exist, the reality of this encounter with Satan nonetheless appears to be something that took place in time and space, inasmuch as the general narration does lend itself to understanding Jesus’ conflict as merely a psychological or internally imagined event.
The history of interpretation discloses four main approaches: (1) a parenetic or psychologizing view, in which Jesus’ temptations represent the three main categories of all human temptations (cf. 1 Jn. 2:16: “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life”; cf. also the three appeals of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for Eve in Gen. 3:6); (2) a christological approach, which stresses the obedient nature of the Son of God; (3) a messianic interpretation, in which Jesus is tempted to reject the way of the cross in favor of following the more political, nationalistic hopes of His countrymen; and (4) a salvation-historical option, in which Jesus obeys the commands of God that Israel had disobeyed in its wilderness wanderings, thus proving Himself to be the true representative of Israel. None of these views necessarily excludes any of the others, although (1) has the least textual support. (ISBE, vol. 4, p. 785)
Robert Stein nicely summarizes the temptation narrative in the following way:
At his temptation Jesus settled once and for all the kind of Messiah he would be. He would not use his messianic powers for his own ends. Jesus rejected all political concepts of messiahship and especially the path of the Zealots. Instead he would accept the path of the suffering servant that God had ordained for him. He would trust God for his daily needs, even as he taught his followers to trust God. He would experience hunger, hostility, sorrow and frustration like others. As he faced the cross he would not use his messianic powers to rescue himself. … He would trust instead in the providential care of his Father. He would say, like millions who have followed him, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46).
JESUS CALLING THE TWELVE
As much as Jesus baptism and his temptation mark the inauguration of his kingdom ministry, so too, does the choosing of the twelve disciples. That Jesus called twelve men to be His apostles is unquestionably a messianic act. It was commonly understood that in the day of God’s visitation the twelve tribes of Israel would be restored and that God would establish his kingdom on earth (cp. Isaiah 11.1-16 49.5, 6; 56.8). Jesus declared that the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Matt 4.17). With these words Jesus assumes the office spoken of by John the Baptist; in the very next verse Matthew writes: As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew … “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” The calling of the twelve symbolically demonstrates the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel. “For Jesus, however, this restoration did not involve a political revival of the nation of Israel. It involved, rather, the experience of the Divine presence and the arrival of the kingdom of God in a unique way among his people” (Stein, p. 115).
The apostles were drawn from an odd cross section of Israelites. Matthew was a tax collector. Tax collectors were uniformly acknowledged by their Jewish contemporaries to be Roman conspirators. Despite this, Matthew was brought into the apostolic circle along with Simon the Zealot. Zealots were part of a radical revolutionary movement that advocated the violent overthrow of Rome. Two men of more opposite temperament could hardly be imagined. But, like the “sons of thunder” (James and John, Mark 3.17), they were transformed by the love and grace of Jesus. Indeed, the hot-headed John became known as the beloved disciple. The training of the twelve was the foundation upon which the church was built (for an expansive treatment of this subject, read A. B. Bruce’s classic book, The Training of the Twelve). Jesus instructed His disciples in the Scriptures, in prayer and in pastoral ministry. He gave them hands-on experience. Most importantly, He empowered them with the Holy Spirit. Jesus equipped the apostles that they might equip the church (Eph 2.20; 4.11-16; cp. Rev 21.14).
