AT the commencement of this passage we read, "In those days," but the reference is not necessarily one of immediate time. Matthew takes the story up after thirty years have elapsed, and gives us no details of the happenings of that period. A generation has passed away since we saw Jesus carried to Nazareth as He returned from Egypt. The time of the showing of the King is approaching; the hour at which He must be manifested to His people; the hour at which He is coming forth from privacy to publicity. He will cease to tread the lowly, patient pathway of a subject merely, and will begin to exercise His authority by declaring His manifesto, by exhibiting the benefits of His kingdom, and by finally moving to His Cross and Throne. But before His manifestation, His herald is seen, and it is with the herald that we have to do in this passage.

Let us, then, look at the herald himself. Let us consider the ministry he exercised among the Hebrew people. Let us finally consider his Christian ministry-that is, the ministry by which he linked the old economy to the new; culminating one dispensation, and uttering the word which indicated the commencement of the new movement.

In the first four verses the man himself is presented to our view. The keynote of his ministry is struck; but we are principally occupied with the man.

Let us look at the man first according to the old-time prophecy (Mat 3:3). Secondly let us see the man as he appeared to his day and generation (Mat 3:4). Finally let us listen to the key-note of his ministry (Mat 3:2).

First, then, the man, according to prophecy. Here again the Hebrew evangelist, writing specifically from the Hebrew standpoint, linked the coming of John with the prophecies of the past.

Turn to the prophecy of Isaiah (ch. xl.3) [Isa 40:3]: "The voice of one that crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of Jehovah, make level in the desert a highway for our God." Let us endeavour to keep in view the whole sweep of the prophecy of Isaiah, for we can only grasp individual verses by great outlooks. We shall only see where this quotation fits into the ministry of Jesus Christ, as we attempt to fasten upon our minds what this prophecy teaches.

Leaving any discussion of the unity of the authorship of Isaiah, but remembering that it is a unified message, there will be manifest a very distinct method. The book falls naturally into three great divisions. There are first thirty-five chapters, constituting a great movement; of judgment pronounced, shot through again and again, as all the Hebrew prophecies are, with the light of mercy, and the gleaming glory of infinite grace, that for evermore enwraps the judgment of God. The great subject of this first division is judgment. The prophet first of all utters an impeachment of the nation, with strange, alarming, and terrible denunciation of the condition of God's ancient people. Then moving on, he tells the story of how he was called and commissioned to his work. In those chapters are two movements of judgment: first, the judgment of the chosen people on account of their failure; secondly, the judgment of the nations.

Then there is a small division in the heart of the prophecy, chapters 36-39, four chapters only, which may be called historic; corresponding with the story in some of the historic books of the Bible. In these the prophet describes the condition of affairs in his own time, and so explains the great burden of judgment that he has been compelled to utter.

Then at chapter xl., commences the supreme message of the Book of Isaiah, that for which all the rest has been necessarily preparatory. In Isaiah, as in every Hebrew prophecy, judgment is not the final word, and the prophet breaks out, "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God." Then, as if he were listening to something that was not to come for centuries after for an inspired man has not only keen vision, but acute hearing he says, without naming the man, " The voice of one that crieth. Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of Jehovah, Make level in the desert a highway for our God." The prophet has heard the cry afar off before any one else has heard it. It is a voice in the desert; but he understands it, he knows what it means, and in a moment he begins, "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain;" and the majestic description of issues moves on through chapters xl. and xli., and everything moves forward to chapter xlii. "Behold My Servant, Whom I uphold; My Chosen in Whom My soul delighteth." From that moment the prophecy centres in, and proceeds through, that Servant of Jehovah.

We shall find presently in Matthew's Gospel that he quotes this prophecy of the Servant of Jehovah. We stand back from this old prophecy, and turn over to ch. iii. of the Gospel and read, "And in those days cometh John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, saying, Repent ye; for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet saying,

Make His paths straight." The King is coming; the Servant of God that Isaiah described in all the remaining portion of his great book. John is preaching, and the voice that Isaiah heard with keen, quick hearing, centuries before, is singing in the wilderness, sounding over the Jordan, through the region round Jerusalem, through Judaea, penetrating to the heart of the metropolis Jerusalem. It is the voice that foretells the advent of the Kingdom of heaven, when "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low." The voice announces the new age, the new movement; a new age and movement not sentimentally, but personally governed. The Kingdom is at the doors, and the fulfilling of the ancient prophecy, the ministry of John the Baptist commences.

Secondly, let us look at the man as he appeared to his people (Mat 3:4). "Now John himself had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his food was locusts and wild honey." That is all. It is one of those pictures that has very little light and shade from without. There are no fine outlines merging into the shadows and coming up into great light. There was nothing of this in John the Baptist. He was a man severe, ascetic; one burdened with a sense of the sin of his times.

The story of John is a wonderful one. He was born in the priesthood, and therefore for the priesthood. As to how far he and the Boy Jesus knew each other there has been much speculation. This boy John was born in remarkable circumstances. He grew up, coming to young manhood, when he should have taken upon him the vows of the priesthood according to Divine and human arrangements. But elections of the past are set aside, and suddenly the young man, cared for, prayed for, and nurtured in the home of his father, turned his back upon home, and upon the priesthood; and went, for preparation for his work, into the wilderness, and dwelt there until the hour of his manifestation. There he may have brooded over the story of the past; brooded over the strange conviction within him that told of day-dawn at hand; brooded, if he had known the Boy Jesus, over what he had seen in Him, perchance of simplicity which had astonished him; brooded almost certainly over his mother's story of his own birth, and the birth at the same time of this Boy Jesus. He thought long and in loneliness. It is Quite true that if a man would know something of the sin of his own age, he must live in the midst of his age. But no man has ever spoken against the sin of his age with the authoritative voice of God, who has only lived in the midst of his age. He must also see it from the distance. This man went into the wilderness, and suddenly, without warning, he broke upon the whole nation; a great voice, ringing over the mountains and plains.

Thirdly, what was his message? "Repent"-Change your minds. This word, Repent, was the key-note of Jesus' teaching. This is radical, revolutionary. A man comes out of the wilderness, and looks into the faces of the village-folk, of the suburban people, of the metropolitan people, and he says: Repent; you are all wrong; wrong at the heart and core of things; wrong in your seeing, and therefore in your doing.

But the reason is, that the "Kingdom of heaven is at hand." The "Kingdom of heaven" was a current phrase of Jewish speech, which is almost peculiar to the Gospel of Matthew, representing a perpetual consciousness in Jewish thinking. "The Kingdom of Heaven" the theocracy, the Divine government, the heavenly Order. In earthly life the authority of God exercised among men. Now, said this strange ascetic preacher as he came, This Kingdom is at hand. The ideal your fathers have cherished is about to be realized in your midst, and you are not ready for it. "Repent," change your minds. It was a great word and a great message, delivered with no tone of tenderness judging from the records which, while meager, are yet sufficient. There was never a tone of tenderness about John until he saw Jesus; and then the stern ascetic became full of tenderness as he used the greatest phrase of the spirit of tenderness: "Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." But until the great Sin-bearer came, John was the sin-bearer in his own consciousness; the sin of the nation was on his heart. He was the most magnificent in many ways of all the long line of prophets, with an awful monotony in his message-"Repent ye, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Yet his message to the Hebrew people is given a little more fully. We have only so far looked at the key-note. Now look at ver. 5 (Mat 3:5). "Then went out unto him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about the Jordan, and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said unto them, Ye generation of vipers"-offspring, genus, kin-"who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" And yet he did not turn them back. He did not say they could not flee. He did not say their repentance was not genuine; but he told them what to do. "Bring forth, therefore, fruit worthy of repentance: and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham."

Such is the brief analysis of the Hebrew ministry of John; and there are three qualities in it. First, it was attractive "Then went out unto him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about the Jordan;" secondly, it was convictive-"They were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins;" finally, it was invective. Against the men who constituted the fountain-head of all Israel's trouble-Pharisees,-Sadducees he flung himself in passionate protest.

We sometimes imagine that there is nothing attractive in our ministry, except the winning, wooing note. But there are times when we seem to need again the voice of the herald; and when God finds a John the Baptist and sends him out, his message is full of attractiveness. This is a great picture of attractiveness, of a man with a note of conviction in his message and authority in the way that he deals with sin. He came with no theology; he came with no philosophy to discuss; he came with no new cult to introduce; he did not come to ask men to consider a position which they could accept or reject as they pleased; he came with the thundering voice of a great inspiration-"Repent;" and the message of God's authority stirred every place, and every one. Thank God it is true to-day. We do not need one Gospel for the city, and another for the suburbs, and another for the country. Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the villages need the same message. Before Jesus come, John Baptist must come to the city, and suburbs, and country; and as his message is heard there will be attractiveness in it.

Then notice, his message was convictive. At least men acknowledged the truth externally, and submitted to the baptism which was a symbol of their repentance. Of course it all fell short there. It can never be any more than that. John Baptist can never communicate life. Coming after him is the Sin-bearer, the great tender-hearted King of men, who does not only produce repentance, but gives life. If we are convinced of sin, thank God for it, but it is not enough. The crowds that thronged the banks of the Jordan, and went down into its waters of baptism, which was a baptism of repentance, were very sincere; but to accept Jesus there must be something more than this.

Once again, notice the invective note in his preaching. Now the leaders were responsible Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisee was a ritualist; the Sadducee a rationalist. The Pharisee believed in all supernatural things, but imagined that they could be expressed in external things, and that is always the story of ritualism. The Sadducees did not believe in angel, spirit, or resurrection. They were rationalists, cold and hard. These are the forces that damn a people, that blight a nation. John saw them coming; the ritualists and the rationalists, who with their splendid observance of externalities and their inward corruptness of life, had blighted the whole nation. And John said with roughness, "Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come," ye kin of vipers? And then, as if he had said: You have come, and you say you repent; but by you, more than by all others, must be manifested the reality of your repentance. "Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance;" trust no longer in your physical relationship to Abraham "God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham."

What a message it was! It must have burned and scorched these men. The more one studies it the more glad one is that Jesus' ministry of renewing followed. Thank God that the message to-day is that of this blessed King!

Notice what John said about the King, for after all it is the supreme matter. "And even now the axe lieth at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." It is a wonderful message! God help us to catch its notes.

The first thing that John testifies, is to the coming One, and he says two things of Him-first, He is supreme in His Person; secondly, He is supreme in His work. There is a humility about this; there is a touch of modesty in it; and the difference between a real humility and a mock humility, we all know. Real humility never knows it is humble; mock humility is proud of its humility. "He that cometh after me is mightier than I, Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear." John was quite right. We will take Another's estimate of John: "Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women, there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist." This is what the King said of him, and this is true also. And yet, greatest of women born, said the King, he was not worthy to bear the shoes of the King. This is quite true.

There is a supreme difference in their work. We need not describe the difference between the two men-the rugged and rough prophet, and the magnificent and majestic King, Whose very gentleness is mightier than the hurricane of His herald. '"Thy gentleness hath made me great." The contrast is not only in the persons; it is in their work. "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He that cometh after me is mightier than I-He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire " I lead you to the external symbol of your repentance; He shall whelm you in the fire-whelming of the Holy Ghost, that burns your sin out of you, and re-makes you. I have to do, said John, with the external thing-water, that which can only touch the surface of things; He shall work with fire, that which shall go through everything.

That is the difference between Jesus and John to-day. If we listen to the message of John only, we stall be busy with water-baptism and washing. But if we listen to the message of Jesus, the fire will burn, and burn to purity, and burn to realization, and burn to crowning. The work of Jesus is superior to the work of John.

Listen to what John says about His methods. This is to be a strange and wonderful King Who is coming. He is to be destructive and constructive in His method; and His victories are to be destructive and constructive.

His methods of destruction are, "the axe," "the fan," and " the fire." "The axe lieth at the root of the trees," said John. It is ready. He is coming, and His "fan is in His hand," the fan that winnows. And the fire will burn.

But His methods are constructive. He shall baptize you with fire; He shall cleanse the threshing-floor, not destroy it, and "He will gather His wheat into the garner." Mark the contrast. The axe at the root of the trees for destruction-for the cutting off of the fruitless; the fan for scattering the chaff; the fire for immediately devouring the chaff. But mark the constructive work. The fire is for cleansing and energy; the cleansing of the threshing-floor, that perfect work may go forward, and the garnering and the gathering in of the wheat. It is the same thing, and the same instrument that does two opposite things. The fan drives away the chaff, leaving the wheat. The fire burns up the thing that cannot stand its fierce flame; and perfects that which can bear the flame. And so the King Who comes is to be destructive and constructive destructive, for the fruitless tree is to be hewn down ; the chaff is to be driven away and burnt, constructive,-for the threshing-floor is to be cleansed; the wheat is to be gathered and garnered, and men are to be fire-baptized.

Nineteen centuries have gone since this rugged prophet heralded the coming of the King. The work of Jesus has proceeded in human history for nineteen centuries on exactly the lines he laid down. Jesus Christ has always been the King of destruction and construction. Glance back; think of the centuries, and think of the influence of Jesus in the centuries. What has He done? Oh! the things He has burnt up. Oh! the things He has built. Always fanning, and chaff is flung before it; always a gatherer, and the wheat is being garnered. It is so to-day. The axe of Jesus lies at the root of the tree that is fruitless. The winnowing fan of Christ is at work; the chaff must go. Do you imagine that after all the chaff is going to submerge the wheat, and fruitless trees crowd out the fruit-bearing vines of God? Then you do not know the King. His fan is in His hand, and if we live on the mountains of God, we shall feel the wind of God which blows and scatters things which must go.

The question of importance for us, for our work in the little day God allows us to live, is this: Am I chaff, or wheat? Is the work I am doing chaff or wheat? If I am chaff, His wind will blow me to the unquenchable fire; but if I am wheat, He will gather me, and garner me. So with my work, and with everything.

THESE few verses reveal the relation of the King to heaven, as they tell the story of His attestation and anointing.

The paragraph commences with the word "then," which connects it with what has preceded, and reminds us that these events took place in a time of general consciousness of sin, and of that great moral movement throughout the whole region consequent upon the ministry of John the Baptist. Then, the King came out of seclusion to manifest Himself to men. The voice had cried in the wilderness, and the way of the Lord was thus made ready, and His paths made straight. At the set time, the King came from privacy into publicity. From the quiet seclusion of the years spent in Nazareth, He came to inaugurate His work and assume His office.

In these few verses there are three matters for our consideration: the baptism of the King; His anointing; and the Divine word concerning Him.

Notice that it is carefully stated that He came "to be baptized." His coming was of set purpose and for a special reason. Considering the note of John's message, and the meaning of his ministry, this action on the part of Jesus at once arrests attention and arouses inquiry. John had been preaching repentance, and his baptism was the baptism of repentance. All men had crowded to him the-men of the city, of Judea, of the wayside, and of the whole region of Jordan. Among the rest, Jesus of Nazareth set His face towards the place where the prophet's voice was heard and the prophet's baptism was being administered. He set His face, moreover, not as one of a curious multitude going to listen and observe, but for the special purpose of being baptized. We ask with wonder and amazement, Why should He be baptized with the baptism of repentance? That is the question to which we are to attempt to find an answer.

I. In looking at the baptism let us first notice its place in the life of Jesus. Forgetting His office, which is the supreme matter in this Gospel; turning our attention from the fact that He is King, anointed of God from eternity for this work, we will simply look at Him as the Man as He has appeared before us in the story of His genealogy and birth. The life of Jesus was absolutely sinless. If He were not sinless, then we have no Gospel. All the value of His dying depends upon the virtue of His living. Why, then, did the Sinless submit to a baptism of repentance? John looked into the face of this one Man, among all other men coming to his baptism; and with the keen, quick insight of the truly inspired seer, he saw the difference. He had been baptizing many men as they had pressed to him, and as he looked upon their faces he had seen in all of them the evidences of anxiety for repentance. But when this Man came to him, One among a crowd, so like them that the crowd did not distinguish Him, there was yet a difference. John said, "In the midst of you standeth One Whom ye know not." And then John looked at Him and said, "I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?"

John, looking into His face, became conscious of the absolute perfection and sinless spotlessness of this Man. He was amazed and arrested; he felt as if he dare not lay his hands upon that Man to immerse Him in the waters of the Jordan.

So far as the human life of Jesus is concerned, John was perfectly right in that feeling. There was no place for John's baptism in the life of Jesus; He had nothing to repent of, no sin to be put away, the putting away of which was symbolized in this ablution in water. If Jesus was simply living out a human life to consummation, which would henceforth be pattern and ideal only, then that baptism was out of place, having neither value nor meaning.

Then we must go further if we are to understand the meaning of the baptism of Jesus. If it did not occupy a place in the life of Jesus, did it occupy a place in the mission of the King?

The question suggests the answer. When John was reluctant, and felt he could not lay his hands upon Jesus to baptize Him, Jesus looked at him and said, "Suffer it now; for thus it becometh us" that was John and Himself-"Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness"-thus it becometh you to act with Me, and Me to act with you for the fulfillment of righteousness.

In that statement we find the meaning. The supreme element in the baptism of Jesus was the identification of the Sinless with the sinner. He Who had no sin to repent of, took His place among those who had sin to repent of. He Who was sinless, went down into the baptism that was the portion of the sinner.

In Isaiah liii. (Isa 53:12), we read, "He . . . was numbered with the transgressors." There, in baptism as in incarnation and birth, and finally and for consummation, in the mystery of His Passion, we see the King identifying Himself with the people over whom He is to reign, in the fact of their deepest need, and direst failure. This chapter of Isaiah is the one in which the picture of the Servant of God finds its culminating glory. The prophecy of the forerunner, which was fulfilled in the ministry of John, is found in chapter xl. In chapter xlii. is recorded the beginning of the new movement, "Behold My Servant," and from there onwards, the Servant of the Lord is presented. In chapter liii. we see the Servant of the Lord rejected, bruised, cast out; the suffering Messiah, the King that men will not have. Towards its close we have the story of His Person, and of His ultimate victory, and in verse 11 (Isa 53:11) we find these words, "He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied. By the knowledge of Himself shall my righteous Servant justify many; and He shall bear their iniquities."

These words, "My righteous Servant shall justify many," are the explanation of the meaning of Jesus when He said to John, "Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." By identification with them in sin and suffering "He bare the sin of many." He identified Himself with them in their sins, and "was numbered with the transgressors;" and therefore "by the knowledge of Himself shall My righteous Servant justify many." His knowledge of Himself is His first-hand knowledge (see Joh 2:24-25), and so is knowledge of the need, knowledge of the remedy, and consent to all such knowledge is involved. "He shall bear their iniquities." The King was facing the problem of obtaining His Kingdom, and He faced first the sin of man. He submitted to the baptism of John, indicating by this symbolic action His identification of Himself with His people in their sin, in order that He may put that sin away, and build and establish the Kingdom of God, and so fulfill all righteousness.

His going down into the waters of baptism was a consent and a prophecy. It was a consent to the only method by which the King could save from sin; and it uttered the prophecy of that final baptism towards which His face was set through all the days of public ministry the baptism of His Passion. Jesus referred to personal baptism only twice subsequently. Both Matthew and Mark tell the story of some office-seeking disciples who asked to sit one on the right hand, and the other on the left in His Kingdom. And He looked at them and said, "Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" Perhaps they thought He was speaking of that past baptism in water, for they said, "We are able." We know He was looking on to that other baptism of which the first baptism was the foreshadowing and the prophecy-the Passion Baptism. That was His great baptism.

Only on one other occasion did He make reference to His own personal baptism. In that wonderful soliloquy of His recorded by Luke, when, surrounded by His own disciples and oppressed, He broke out into these words, "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what will I? Oh that it were already kindled! But I have a baptism, to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?" John baptized in water. Jesus came to baptize with fire; but He could not baptize with fire, until He Himself had been baptized in the whelming waters of death.

Thus the King is seen commencing His public ministry. There lie behind Him the quiet years of seclusion and preparation, the years in which He has done the Will of God in the commonplace. Now the great crisis has come. He will presently enunciate the laws of His Kingdom, personally exhibit the benefits of that Kingdom; and enforce the claims of His Kingship. He knows that the culminating work will be the Cross; that these multitudes, baptized of John, will reject Him. He knows that He cannot win them by His example and by preaching, but only by the way of His dying. He knows the issue of sin. These sinners on the banks of the Jordan are making necessary His death-death in its profoundest sense; and as He watches them going down to those waters, He goes with them, and in that whelming in the Jordan He typifies and prophesies that death-whelming through which He, the Innocent, will presently pass in order to fulfill all righteousness, to cancel sin, to banish it, to make it not to be; that He may build His Kingdom on the foundations of righteousness, and "bring forth the top-stone with shoutings of Grace." By His knowledge-as Isaiah said long before-by His knowledge of the need, and of the real meaning of sin; by His knowledge of the way by which men may be redeemed, His soul consents to an identification that shall issue in death, the supreme character of which shall be expressed by the terrible words, "The pains of Sheol gat hold upon Me." And as He goes down into these waters of baptism He consents to that mission, and formally commits "Himself to the cause of man, for man's saving.

This baptism of Jesus has no application to us. We rob this passage of all its significance when we say that as Jesus was baptized, therefore we ought to be baptized. Let us not take hold of this great and marvellous passage, and use it in a small and unworthy way. We have something to do with this baptism of Jesus, but it is a baptism that we cannot be baptized with save by identification through His grace. "The cup that I* drink ye shall drink; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized." That was a word of infinite love.

There are two applications of the great baptism-that of judgment and of death, and that of life and of fire. We share only in that of life and fire. That, He can only bestow upon us by the way of judgment and of death; by the mystery of His Cross. Thus He fulfilled all righteousness. By His baptism He committed Himself to men, and to the purposes of God; consented at the beginning of His public ministry to God's method for the saving of men.

II. Now let us turn to that which immediately followed the baptism. "And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway from the water; and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him; and lo, a Voice out of the heavens, saying, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased." There is little doubt that none saw this descent of the Spirit save Jesus and John. What was the meaning of this anointing, in the life of Jesus? Jesus did not now for the first time receive the Holy Spirit. There was a permanent relation between Jesus and the Spirit of God. He was, in a sense in which none other ever has been or can be, born of the Holy Ghost; His development had been under the control of the Spirit of God. When He came to baptism, He was a Man of the Spirit of God, as all men might have been, had there been no sin. Jesus was a natural Man; not as Paul uses the word, not in the theological sense, but in the simpler sense that lies behind the theological sense. We are told that the natural man is the sinner, and there are present senses in which that is true; but God's ideal for a man is that he should live in perpetual communion with the Spirit of God. That is truly natural life. The natural life of the ideal man is supernatural. The whole life of Jesus was dominated by the Spirit of God. He willed, and thought, and lived under the Spirit's power, and illumination, and impulse.

Therefore without question this was a special anointing of Jesus as He entered upon His public ministry. The Spirit of God never appears under the figure of a dove anywhere save here. The Spirit of God never manifested Himself in this form before. We have no right to pray that the Spirit may descend on us as a dove. It descended on Him in this outward, and visible, and symbolic fashion, and on Him alone.

It has been said by Puritan writers that the dove is among the birds what the lamb is among the beasts-a symbol of great gentleness and sweetness. Jesus used the figure of a dove in that application in those remarkable words when He said to His disciples that they were to be "wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." The dove and the lamb are gentle and harmless in their character; and they are therefore also types of sacrifice. Jesus was led "as a lamb ... to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is dumb" so was He.

The Spirit therefore came upon Him as a dove. The Book of Leviticus depicts this strange yet wonderful rite of Hebraism which typified and shadowed sacrifice. In the great sin-offerings men brought offerings graded, as to value, according to their social position. A man who could afford it brought a bullock, another would offer a lamb, and the poorest brought a dove. It is interesting to remember that when Mary brought Jesus up to the Temple, her offering was a dove. The dove therefore is the bird that signifies patience, gentleness, harmlessness; and is the type of sacrifice possible to the lowliest of the people.

We must put ourselves back into Hebrew thinking to understand these things, and their spiritual significances. Matthew wrote his Gospel specifically for the Jew. When the Hebrew heard of a dove, or of a lamb, he always thought of a sacrifice for sin. The coming of the Spirit as a bird of sacrifice for sin for the lowliest was the equipment of Jesus for the carrying out of the deepest purpose of sacrifice. He had just consented to death in His whelming in the waters, and the Spirit of God fell upon Him as a dove. The bird of sacrifice for sin in the ancient economy rested in holy gentleness upon Him, Who is God's one, perfect, final Sacrifice for sin. The dove is the emblem of weakness; but the Spirit of God in the form of a dove is an emblem of power in gentleness-Deity submissive to sacrifice for the salvation of men. This was an anointing for death, for atonement. It was not simply an anointing for preaching, but for living in order to dying. He had consented to death; and Heaven crowned Him with power for that death. "Christ . . . through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without blemish unto God;" and when the Spirit came as a dove, it was for that crowning and that purpose. The King as a man is energized by God for dealing with that which is fundamentally wrong in the Kingdom, and setting it right. God clothes Himself with man that He may proceed to the redemption of the lost race; and the Son is enwrapped in the power of the Spirit's anointing, and crowned with the dove-like form. So the King faces the conflict, already conquering in the glory of the victory that is to be.

III. Finally we listen to the attestation. The Voice is heard saying: "This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased." We must interpret that Divine affirmation by the second Psalm, in which we see the anointing of the Son, and the King, "upon His holy hill of Zion." Therein we hear the decree of God:

That is one of the most glorious references to the Son of God as the reigning King that the Old Testament Scriptures contain. God's King is to ask for the nations, and possess them with the heathen, and hold them for an inheritance. "Thou art My Son." The thought of the Scriptures that He was a Son runs through the old Hebrew prophecies, and ritual, and thinking. Now at last, on the banks of the Jordan, God says, "This is My ... Son." This is the Son of man, but He is "My . . . Son," Whose advent the prophets foretold. Men have been waiting and looking for His appearing; calling to the watchers on the mountains, and asking, "What of the night?" They have wondered at the delay of His coming, and have cried out through the days, Come quickly! "This is My . . . Son." So God marks out the King.

But God declares another thing concerning Him. "In Whom I am well pleased." This declaration flashes its light back on those hidden years of Nazareth. We have no chronicle of those years. There is an almost complete silence from the time He was twelve years of age to His thirtieth year. It is now at thirty years of age we see Him on the banks of the Jordan, spotless, and sinless, and ready for sacrifice. One's mind goes necessarily back to the old economy, and we see the priest examining the sacrifice, which must be without blemish. Is this Man without blemish? God says I am well pleased." He sets the seal of perfection upon the hidden years. We want to know no more. We ask for no details; it is enough.

In Nazareth He has pleased God as a Man; He has done what no other did, or could do, since man fell by sin. And so the light is flashed upon the past, and shows its perfection.

But there is a further value. Said Jesus, "Therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life." And when God said, "I am well pleased," it was a declaration of the Divine complacency with the act of baptism, which indicated perfect union with God in the purpose of salvation, even by the way of the Cross of death.

There was the most perfect unity of purpose and of spirit between the Father and the Son through all the process of redemption. Smitten? Yes. Afflicted? Yes. Bruised? Yes. Because of righteousness and holiness? Yes. But, "In all their affliction"-even in lie affliction of the Cross-" He was afflicted," not merely as Man, but One with God Himself working for salvation. "Therefore doth the Father love Me" because of this accomplishment. And as He sets His face toward the Cross, in perfect union with the Will of God, God breaks the silence and says, "I am well pleased."

Thus in baptism He assumed responsibility for sinning men; by the anointing of the Spirit He was crowned and empowered; and by the Divine Voice He was attested God's King, set upon the holy hill of Zion.

Let us close with the words of the Psalmist: