A long interval has now passed before we reach the time of this chapter. Like that of Moses in his youth, as I may call it, the course of Jesus had been interrupted through the reasonings and darkness of nature. Moses had supposed that his brethren would have understood how that God, by his hand, would deliver them but they understood not; and their unbelief separated him from them for forty years.
So Jesus, the Greater than Moses, was doing His Father's business in the midst of Israel; but His brethren understood not,--and He had to go down to Nazareth, estranged from Israel for another season. He can but pass it, however, in the same perfectness before God. Man's unbelief may chancre the scene, but nothing touched the heart of this Holy One. He went down to Nazareth to be in subjection there, still as a goodly Child increasing in wisdom as in stature, and in favour with God and man.
But here, in this chapter, we enter on other scenes and times altogether. The children have grown up, and are ripe for their showing unto Israel. And just at this solemn moment our evangelist takes a full survey of the world. It was a task which properly belonged to him under the Spirit, for the Spirit through him, as I have said, looks at man, and deals with man. He here shows us how still and at rest the whole earth was sitting, for the Gentile beast had all in order, according to its mind. Zech. 1: 11. Tiberius the Roman was emperor, his proconsuls were in their several governments, Judea itself being a member of his strength, and part of his honour. The priests, too, were in their temple. All in the earth, both as to its religion and government, was just as man would have it. But under the eye of God, all this was a wilderness; and instead, therefore, of His taking a place in it, and owning it as repose to Him, the voice, of His servant is sent forth to awaken it all, like Elijah in the evil days of Ahab, and to disturb the sleep of carnal contentment in which man and the world were folded.
God's thoughts are indeed not as man's thoughts. Man's sabbath was now a wilderness to Him, and He will act on it as a wilderness. The dispensation of the law had, by this time, tested man, and found him to be hopelessly departed from righteousness; and John is now, according to this, sent forth to call on man to take the place of a convicted sinner. He points to the remedy that was in God for such a one, but he does not reveal it as already accomplished and brought in. He announced the vanity of all flesh, uncovering the very roots of it; but his hand did not carry the seed of a better harvest. He laid the sentence of death in man, but he did not bring life to him. He put him in the dust, but gave him no power to rise. The life and power were to come in by the Son afterwards. "John did no miracle." He challenged the violent to take the kingdom by force, but he did not set before them an open door. "He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light." He stood between Israel and their God, telling Israel, on the one hand, that they were all flesh, and that flesh was as grass; pointing to Jehovah-Jesus, God of Israel, on the other, as bringing His reward with Him, and doing His work before Him.
There was a mingling of grace and righteousness in his ministry. He came "in the way of righteousness," standing apart from and refusing contact with the world, and thus by his light rebuking the darkness. He mourned to his generation, neither eating nor drinking, because he called on men to know themselves to be sinners, and to take their place as such. But then, he came in the way of grace also, because he was the forerunner of Jesus, and went before the face of the Lord to prepare the way of salvation and the kingdom. Thus there was a mingling of grace and righteousness in his ministry, and it was clearly quite an advance upon both the law and the prophets. The law had sought to order man in the flesh according to righteousness; and the prophets had been sent, in one sense, as in aid of the law, to call the people back to obedience, so that every help and advantage might be rendered to man; and God's abounding patience proved, in the trial of this question, whether or not man were able to restore himself, and stand in righteousness. But John's ministry assumed the vanity of all expectations of this kind, and took up man as a convicted sinner. But then, such is the holy order in divine wisdom, it was not so high a ministry as that which has been now brought in. The apostles, after the resurrection, called on man to take by faith the place of a pardoned sinner. And thus over us the light of grace and salvation has reached its noon-day strength, and we are waiting only for the light of glory and the kingdom.
With our God, let me here say, there has been, from the beginning, a work far deeper and more excellent than that of the old creation. The old creation was, in some sense, left at man's disposal. His allegiance or his disobedience was to determine its history. But the divine counsel from before the creation had planned and laid a work in and by the Son, which could never fail, or be contingent on any strength less than His own. And it is this mystery which the Lord has before Him when He says, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away." Creation was removable; redemption (the work of the Word) is immovable, because the living God has joined Himself with it. And thus the prophet, addressing Jesus the Son, says, "Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure." And so all things that are made may be shaken (Heb. 12: 27), for God Himself is not joined to them; He is not their foundation. But the Word was with God, and was God, and became flesh, part and parcel (so to speak of this blessed mystery of everlasting goodness) of the work itself. He is the Vine, the Chief Corner-stone, the Head-stone of the building. This gives redemption an unspeakably more excellent glory than creation ever had. And thus the Baptist, in the ministry which we have in this chapter of our Gospel, says, "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever." See Isa. 40. All in this work is incorruptible. The seed of the life which it brings is incorruptible - the body with which it will clothe that life is incorruptible--the inheritance to which it introduces is incorruptible. 1 Cor. 15; 1 Peter 1. God has entered through the breach which man's sin produced in the old creation, and has joined Himself with the mighty ruin, in such a way, and for such an end, as will be to the everlasting praise of His own most blessed name, and also to the sure abiding and imperishableness of His new creation.
Psalm 90 appears to be the utterance of a soul that has learnt something of this mystery. The prophet looks to God Himself as above all created strength; he then traces the vanity which has attended the old creation; and at last finds his relief from such a sight in God's work of mercy, or the work of redemption by the Word. And this is so with us, beloved. The work of the Word, or of God manifest in flesh, is the relief of our hearts from the painful sense of the universal vanity around us. John's ministry might lead the soul into that sense of vanity, but it remained for Another to give us this blessed and sure relief in Himself, and in His work that standeth for ever.
But this only by the way, as we pass on, in connection with the ministry of the Baptist which this chapter gives us. The Lord's genealogy is then traced up to the sources of the human family; not to David and to Abraham merely, as in Matthew, but to Adam. And this, I need not say, is quite according to the general mind of the Spirit in Luke, which I have already spoken of. And the absence of all such genealogies in John is, in the same way, entirely consistent. For genealogies recognize human or national relations; and the preserving of them, as is done in the Jewish Scriptures (see 1 Chr., &c., &c.), shows a jealousy for the order and maintenance of the human system. That system will be sustained in the kingdom, when the hearts of the children are turned to the fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children. Zech. 12: 10-14. But we are told not to mind genealogies (1 Tim. 1: 4; Titus 3: 9); for the Church is not to be the minister for ordering and maintaining the human system, but is taken into heavenly relations.
Before I enter on the following chapter, I would observe that our Lord's Sonship of God is here owned at the time of His baptism, as had been done at the announcing of His birth before, and was to be done at His transfiguration afterwards. Luke 1: 35; Luke 9: 35. But there is distinct value in each. The virgin's Child, from the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, was to be called "the Son of God." His person was then owned. Now, at His baptism, the same attestation is made a second time, with this addition, "In Thee I am well pleased." His ministry is now owned (for His baptism was introducing Him to His ministry), owned to be that which would awaken full divine complacency. And this is blessedly comforting to us sinners. The law was never thus approved, for the law exacted righteousness. John the Baptist was never thus approved, for he convicted man without relieving him. But now that the Son was coming forth with grace and healing for sinners, God's mind could rest, for this was the accomplishing of the purpose of His own love; and thus it could now be said of the Son and His ministry, or of the Son at His baptism, or at His anointing which immediately followed His baptism, "Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased." And by-and-by He will, for the third time, be so attested, when the glory or kingdom shines for a moment on the holy mount. Then this same attestation will come forth with this addition, "Hear Him." But this is equally perfect in its season, for this owned Him in His kingdom--every knee must bow to Him, and the soul that will not hear Him will be cut off from among His people.* Acts 3: 22, 23.
*These words, "Hear Him," were a rebuke to Peter for setting Moses and Elias in equal company with Jesus.
Thus on three occasions--at the announcing of His birth, at His baptism, and at His transfiguration, His Sonship of God is divinely attested; in other words, His person, His ministry, and His dominion, are all owned of the Father; the full pleasure of God resting on Him, and the full subjection of the earth demanded for Him. God is well pleased in Him, and the earth is to hear Him. And after these attestations by the voice from heaven, the resurrection in due season comes to verify and close them all by act and deed, and to declare Jesus to be the Son of God "with power." Rom. 1: 4.
