Baptism and the Forty Days

136:1.1The Jews en­ter­tained many ideas about the ex­pected de­liv­erer, and each of these dif­fer­ent schools of Mes­sianic teach­ing was able to point to state­ments in the He­brew scrip­tures as proof of their con­tentions. In a gen­eral way, the Jews re­garded their na­tional his­tory as be­gin­ning with Abra­ham and cul­mi­nat­ing in the Mes­siah and the new age of the king­dom of God. In ear­lier times they had en­vis­aged this de­liv­erer as “the ser­vant of the Lord,” then as “the Son of Man,” while lat­terly some even went so far as to re­fer to the Mes­siah as the “Son of God.” But no mat­ter whether he was called the “seed of Abra­ham” or “the son of David,” all were agreed that he was to be the Mes­siah, the “anointed one.” Thus did the con­cept evolve from the “ser­vant of the Lord” to the “son of David,” “Son of Man,” and “Son of God.”

136:1.2In the days of John and Je­sus the more learned Jews had de­vel­oped an idea of the com­ing Mes­siah as the per­fected and rep­re­sen­ta­tive Is­raelite, com­bin­ing in him­self as the “ser­vant of the Lord” the three­fold of­fice of prophet, priest, and king.

136:1.3The Jews de­voutly be­lieved that, as Moses had de­liv­ered their fa­thers from Egyp­tian bond­age by mirac­u­lous won­ders, so would the com­ing Mes­siah de­liver the Jew­ish peo­ple from Ro­man dom­i­na­tion by even greater mir­a­cles of power and mar­vels of racial tri­umph. The rab­bis had gath­ered to­gether al­most five hun­dred pas­sages from the Scrip­tures which, not­with­stand­ing their ap­par­ent con­tra­dic­tions, they averred were pro­phetic of the com­ing Mes­siah. And amidst all these de­tails of time, tech­nique, and func­tion, they al­most com­pletely lost sight of the per­son­al­ity of the prom­ised Mes­siah. They were look­ing for a restora­tion of Jew­ish na­tional glory—Is­rael’s tem­po­ral ex­al­ta­tion—rather than for the sal­va­tion of the world. It there­fore be­comes ev­i­dent that Je­sus of Naz­a­reth could never sat­isfy this ma­te­ri­al­is­tic Mes­sianic con­cept of the Jew­ish mind. Many of their re­puted Mes­sianic pre­dic­tions, had they but viewed these pro­phetic ut­ter­ances in a dif­fer­ent light, would have very nat­u­rally pre­pared their minds for a rec­og­ni­tion of Je­sus as the ter­mi­na­tor of one age and the in­au­gu­ra­tor of a new and bet­ter dis­pen­sa­tion of mercy and sal­va­tion for all na­tions.

136:1.4The Jews had been brought up to be­lieve in the doc­trine of the Shek­inah. But this re­puted sym­bol of the Di­vine Pres­ence was not to be seen in the tem­ple. They be­lieved that the com­ing of the Mes­siah would ef­fect its restora­tion. They held con­fus­ing ideas about racial sin and the sup­posed evil na­ture of man. Some taught that Adam’s sin had cursed the hu­man race, and that the Mes­siah would re­move this curse and re­store man to di­vine fa­vor. Oth­ers taught that God, in cre­at­ing man, had put into his be­ing both good and evil na­tures; that when he ob­served the out­work­ing of this ar­range­ment, he was greatly dis­ap­pointed, and that “He re­pented that he had thus made man.” And those who taught this be­lieved that the Mes­siah was to come in or­der to re­deem man from this in­her­ent evil na­ture.

136:1.5The ma­jor­ity of the Jews be­lieved that they con­tin­ued to lan­guish un­der Ro­man rule be­cause of their na­tional sins and be­cause of the half­heart­ed­ness of the gen­tile pros­e­lytes. The Jew­ish na­tion had not whole­heart­edly re­pented; there­fore did the Mes­siah de­lay his com­ing. There was much talk about re­pen­tance; where­fore the mighty and im­me­di­ate ap­peal of John’s preach­ing, “Re­pent and be bap­tized, for the king­dom of heaven is at hand.” And the king­dom of heaven could mean only one thing to any de­vout Jew: The com­ing of the Mes­siah.

136:1.6There was one fea­ture of the be­stowal of Mi­chael which was ut­terly for­eign to the Jew­ish con­cep­tion of the Mes­siah, and that was the union of the two na­tures, the hu­man and the di­vine. The Jews had var­i­ously con­ceived of the Mes­siah as per­fected hu­man, super­hu­man, and even as di­vine, but they never en­ter­tained the con­cept of the union of the hu­man and the di­vine. And this was the great stum­bling block of Je­sus’ early dis­ci­ples. They grasped the hu­man con­cept of the Mes­siah as the son of David, as pre­sented by the ear­lier proph­ets; as the Son of Man, the super­hu­man idea of Daniel and some of the later proph­ets; and even as the Son of God, as de­picted by the au­thor of the Book of Enoch and by cer­tain of his con­tem­po­raries; but never had they for a sin­gle mo­ment en­ter­tained the true con­cept of the union in one earth per­son­al­ity of the two na­tures, the hu­man and the di­vine. The in­car­na­tion of the Cre­ator in the form of the crea­ture had not been re­vealed be­fore­hand. It was re­vealed only in Je­sus; the world knew noth­ing of such things un­til the Cre­ator Son was made flesh and dwelt among the mor­tals of the realm.