Jesus Begins His Ministry

Matthew 3:13; 4:11

GOLDEN TEXT: “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”—Matthew 4:10

JOHN the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus, preparing the way for Him. His was a work of reformation, carried on by preaching repentance to Israel and baptizing repentant ones for the remission of their sins. When Jesus came to him and asked to be baptized, John could not understand it. He knew that Jesus was not a sinner. When he compared the perfection of Jesus with his own imperfection John felt that he rather than Jesus was the one who needed to be baptized.

But Jesus insisted that John baptize Him. He did not consider it necessary to explain to John why He wished the ceremony performed. He knew there was another meaning to water immersion which would be understood later. (Rom. 6:1-6; Col. 2:12; Gal. 3:27) Without offering an explanation, Jesus said to his cousin, “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” Jesus knew that His Heavenly Father wanted Him to be baptized; hence, if He should fail to do so, He would come that much short of doing all that God wanted Him to do, and thus would fail to fulfill “all righteousness.”

Jesus was now thirty years old, the age when, under the law, it was permissible for Him to begin His ministry. It was proper that He present Himself formally to God in full consecration. This He did in the language assigned to Him by the prophet, “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God.” (Psa. 40:7,8; Heb. 10:9) This full devotion of Himself to God, the burial of His will into the will of the Father, was very fittingly portrayed by Jesus’ burial in the water.

When the Master came out of the water, there was a visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit descending upon Him. It was in the form of a dove. He saw the heavens opened, and a voice from heaven was heard, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This must have been very comforting to the Master. Much was at stake for Him. He was entering upon a service for God which involved His very existence. Hence, to have the assurance direct from heaven that His Father was well pleased was a witness of the Spirit which must have meant much to the Master, not only at that time, but throughout His entire earthly ministry.

We read that Jesus was led or driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, where He fasted for forty days and nights. (Mark 1:12) We are not to suppose that the Spirit of God literally forced Jesus into the wilderness. The thought is that the illuminating power of the Spirit caused Jesus to realize that there was so much to be considered in connection with the work He was to do that it would be wise to take time, away from others, for the purpose of meditation and study.

After forty days of fasting, Jesus naturally would be weak physically from lack of food, but spiritually He was a tower of strength. It was here that Satan attacked Him through the power of temptation. Jesus was the Son of God. Of this He had been assured by the “voice from heaven.” He knew also that He was destined to be a King—the greatest King of all time; a king whose dominion would be from “sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.” (Psa. 72:8; Zech. 9:10) The temptations presented to Jesus by Satan were associated with these great realities of His place in the plan of God.

“If thou be the Son of God,” was Satan’s subtle approach in the first two temptations. Jesus knew that He was the Son of God. His Heavenly Father had assured Him of this, hence there was no need of putting the matter to the test. Neither did He feel that this entitled Him to special consideration beyond what God intended. While the power of God which was now His to use could be employed to turn stones into bread, Jesus knew that it had not been given to Him for this purpose. To Jesus, there was something far more important than material food, even though at the moment He stood in great need of nourishment. Quoting from the Old Testament, Jesus’ reply to Satan was, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”—Deut. 8:3.

Failing in the first temptation, Satan then suggested, “Cast Thyself down from the pinnacle of the temple,” and then quoted from the 91st Psalm to prove that Jesus would be protected in such an act. Satan’s purpose back of these temptations was to destroy Jesus, either directly, or by causing Him to come under condemnation to God’s law through disobedience. Satan also knew that according to Jewish tradition the Master would be slain as a blasphemer unless He could substantiate His claim of being the Son of God. It may have, been this viewpoint which he hoped would induce Jesus to run the risk of jumping from the pinnacle of the temple. But Jesus did not yield. It would be tempting divine providence to ask for further proof of His Sonship.

The suggestion that Jesus should worship Satan and receive, in return, the authority to rule over-all the kingdoms of the world, was also cleverly conceived. But Jesus was too well fortified by His knowledge of the divine plan to yield. He knew that by the demonstration of His faithfulness unto death, in God’s due time He would be King of earth; so He promptly rejected the proffered regal assignment saying, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve.”

QUESTIONS:

What was represented by Jesus’ baptism in water?

How did the Spirit impel Jesus to go into the wilderness?

In what three ways did Satan tempt Jesus?

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