It was now, as we take it, the early winter of the year 780. Jesus had
waited those months. Although there seems not to have been any personal
acquaintance between Jesus and John, and how could there be, when their
spheres lay so widely apart? — each must have heard and known of the
other. Thirty years of silence weaken most human impressions — or, if
they deepen, the enthusiasm that had accompanied them passes away. Yet,
when the two met, and perhaps had brief conversation, each bore himself in
accordance with his previous history. With John it was deepest, reverent
humility — even to the verge of misunderstanding his special Mission, and
work of initiation and preparation for the Kingdom. He had heard of Him
before by the hearing of the ear, and when now he saw Him, that look of
quiet dignity, of the majesty of unsullied purity in the only Unfallen,
Unsinning Man, made him forget even the express command of God,
which had sent him from his solitude to preach and baptize, and that very
sign which had been him by which to recognize the Messiah. (St. John
1:33). In that Presence it only became to him a question of the more
‘worthy’ to the misunderstanding of the nature of his special calling.
But Jesus, as He had not made haste, so was He not capable of
misunderstanding. To Him it was ‘the fulfilling of all righteousness.’ From
earliest ages it has been a question why Jesus went to be baptized. The
heretical Gospels put into the mouth of the Virgin-Mother an invitation to
go to that baptism, to which Jesus is supposed to have replied by pointing
to His own sinlessness, except it might be on the score of ignorance, in
regard to a limitation of knowledge. Objections lie to most of the
explanations offered by modern writers. They include a bold denial of the
fact of Jesus’ Baptism; the profane suggestion of collusion between John
and Jesus; or such suppositions, as that of His personal sinfulness, of His
coming as the Representative of a guilty race, or as the bearer of the sins of
others, or of acting in solidarity with His people — or else to separate
Himself from the sins of Israel; of His surrendering Himself thereby unto
death for man; of His purpose to do honor to the baptism of John; or thus
to elicit a token of His Messiahship; or to bind Himself to the observance
of the Law; or in this manner to commence His Messianic Work; or to
consecrate Himself solemnly to it; or, lastly, to receive the spiritual
qualification for it. To these and similar views must be added the latest
conceit of Renan, who arranges a scene between Jesus, who comes
with some disciples, and John, when Jesus is content for a time to grow in
the shadow of John, and to submit to a rite which was evidently so
generally acknowledged. But the most reverent of these explanations
involve a twofold mistake. They represent the Baptism of John as one of
repentance, and they imply an ulterior motive in the coming of Christ to the
banks of Jordan. But, as already shown, the Baptism of John was in itself
only a consecration to, and preparatory initiation for, the new Covenant of
the Kingdom. As applied to sinful men it was indeed necessarily a ‘baptism
of repentance;’ but not as applied to the sinless Jesus. Had it primarily and
always been a ‘baptism of repentance,’ He could not have submitted to it.
Again, and most important of all, we must not seek for any ulterior motive
in the coming of Jesus to this Baptism. He had no ulterior motive of any
kind: it was an act of simple submissive obedience on the part of the
Perfect One — and submissive obedience has no motive beyond itself. It
asks no reasons; it cherishes no ulterior purpose. And thus it was ‘the
fulfilment of all righteousness.’ And it was in perfect harmony with all His
previous life. Our difficulty here lies — if we are unbelievers, in thinking
simply of the Humanity of the Man of Nazareth; if we are believers, in
making abstraction of his Divinity. But thus much, at least, all must
concede, that the Gospels always present Him as the God-Man, in an
inseparable mystical union of the two natures, and that they present to us
the even more mysterious idea of His Self-exinanition, of the voluntary
obscuration of His Divinity, as part of His Humiliation. Placing ourselves
on this standpoint — which is, at any rate, that of the Evangelic narrative
— we may arrive at a more correct view of this great event. It seems as if,
in the Divine Self-exinanition, apparently necessarily connected with the
perfect human development of Jesus, some corresponding outward event
were ever the occasion of a fresh advance in the Messianic consciousness
and work. The first event of that kind had been his appearance in the
Temple. These two things then stood out vividly before Him — not in the
ordinary human, but in the Messianic sense: that the Temple was the House
of His Father, and that to be busy about it was His Life-work. With this He
returned to Nazareth, and in willing subjection to His Parents fulfilled all
righteousness. And still, as He grew in years, in wisdom, and in favor with
God and Man, this thought — rather this burning consciousness, was the
inmost spring of His Life. What this business specially was, He knew not
yet, and waited to learn; the how and the when of His life-consecration, He
left unasked and unanswered in the still waiting for Him. And in this also
we see the Sinless, the Perfect One.
When tidings of John’s Baptism reached His home, there could be no haste
on His part. Even with knowledge of all that concerned John’s relation to
Him, there was in the ‘fulfilment of all righteousness’ quiet waiting. The
one question with Him was, as He afterwards put it: ‘The Baptism of John,
whence was it? from heaven, or of men?’ (St. Matthew 21:25). That
question once answered, there could be no longer doubt nor hesitation. He
went — not for any ulterior purpose, nor from any other motive than that
it was of God. He went voluntarily, because it was such — and because ‘it
became Him’ in so doing ‘to fulfill all righteousness.’ There is this great
difference between His going to that Baptism, and afterwards into the
wilderness: in the former case, His act was of preconceived purpose; in the
latter it was not so, but ‘He was driven’ — without previous purpose to
that effect — under the constraining power ‘of the Spirit,’ without
premeditation and resolve of it; without even knowledge of its object. In
the one case He was active, in the other passive; in the one case He fulfilled
righteousness, in the other His righteousness was tried. But as, on His first
visit to the Temple, this consciousness about His Life-business came to
Him in His Father’s House, ripening slowly and fully those long years of
quiet submission and growing wisdom and grace at Nazareth, so at His
Baptism, with the accompanying descent of the Holy Ghost, His abiding in
Him, and the heard testimony from His Father, the knowledge came to
Him, and, in and with that knowledge, the qualification for the business
of His Father’s House. In that hour He learned the when, and in part the
how, of His Life-business; the latter to be still farther, and from another
aspect, seen in the wilderness, then in His life, in His suffering, and, finally,
in His death. In man the subjective and the objective, alike intellectually
and morally, are ever separate; in God they are one. What He is, that He
wills. And in the God-Man also we must not separate the subjective and
the objective. The consciousness of the when and the how of His Lifebusiness
was necessarily accompanied, while He prayed, by the descent,
and the abiding in Him, of the Holy Ghost, and by the testifying Voice
from heaven. His inner knowledge was real qualification — the forthbursting
of His Power; and it was inseparably accompanied by outward
qualification, in what took place at His Baptism. But the first step to all
was His voluntary descent to Jordan, and in it the fulfilling of all
righteousness. His previous life had been that of the Perfect Ideal Israelite
— believing, unquestioning, submissive — in preparation for that which, in
His thirteenth year, He had learned as its business. The Baptism of Christ
was the last act of His private life; and, emerging from its waters in prayer,
He learned: when His business was to commence, and how it would be
done.
That one outstanding thought, then, ‘I must be about My Father’s
business,’ which had been the principle of His Nazareth life, had come to
full ripeness when He knew that the cry, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at
hand,’ was from God. The first great question was now answered. His
Father’s business was the Kingdom of Heaven. It only remained for Him
‘to be about it,’ and in this determination He went to submit to its initiatory
rite of Baptism. We have, as we understand it, distinct evidence — even if
it were not otherwise necessary to suppose this — that ‘all the people had
been baptized,’ (St. Luke 21.) when Jesus came to John. Alone the two
met, probably for the first time in their lives. Over that which passed
between them Holy Scripture has laid the veil of reverent silence, save as
regards the beginning and the outcome of their meeting, which it was
necessary for us to know. When Jesus came, John knew Him not. And
even when He knew Him, that was not enough. Not remembrance of what
he had heard and of past transactions, nor the overwhelming power of that
spotless Purity and Majesty of willing submission, were sufficient. For so
great a witness as that which John was to bear, a present and visible
demonstration from heaven was to be given. Not that God sent the Spirit-
Dove, or heaven uttered its voice, for the purpose of giving this as a sign
to John. These manifestations were necessary in themselves, and, we might
say, would have taken place quite irrespective of the Baptist. But, while
necessary in themselves, they were also to be a sign to John. And this may
perhaps explain why one Gospel (that of St. John) seems to describe the
scene as enacted before the Baptist, whilst others (St. Matthew and St.
Mark) tell it as if only visible to Jesus. The one bears reference to ‘the
record,’ the other to the deeper and absolutely necessary fact which
underlay ‘the record.’ And, beyond this, it may help us to perceive at least
one aspect of what to man is the miraculous: as in itself the higher
Necessary, with casual and secondary manifestation to man.
We can understand how what he knew of Jesus, and what he now saw and
heard, must have overwhelmed John with the sense of Christ’s
transcendentally higher dignity, and led him to hesitate about, if not to
refuse, administering to Him the rite of Baptism. Not because it was
‘the baptism of repentance,’ but because he stood in the presence of Him
‘the latchet of Whose shoes’ he was ‘not worthy to loose’. Had he not so
felt, the narrative would not have been psychologically true; and, had it not
been recorded, there would have been serious difficulty to our reception of
it. And yet, withal, in so ‘forbidding’ Him, and even suggesting his own
baptism by Jesus, John forgot and misunderstood his mission. John himself
was never to be baptized; he only held open the door of the new Kingdom;
himself entered it not, and he that was least in that Kingdom was greater
than he. Such lowliest place on earth seems ever conjoined with greatest
work for God. Yet this misunderstanding and suggestion on the part of
John might almost be regarded as a temptation to Christ. Not perhaps, His
first, nor yet this His first victory, since the ‘sorrow’ of His Parents about
His absence from them when in the Temple must to the absolute
submissiveness of Jesus have been a temptation to turn aside from His
path, all the more felt in the tenderness of His years, and the inexperience
of a first public appearance. He then overcame by the clear consciousness
of His Life-business, which could not be contravened by any apparent call
of duty, however specious. And He now overcame by falling back upon the
simple and clear principle which had brought him to Jordan: ‘It becometh
us to fulfil all righteousness.’ Thus, simply putting aside, without argument,
the objection of the Baptist, He followed the Hand that pointed Him to the
open door of ‘the Kingdom.’
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