King, Messiah, and Son:
The Christ who is Worthy of Our Praise
John 1:29–34
Introduction
Well, we return this morning to our series in the Gospel of John. So please turn again with me in your Bibles to John chapter 1. I’ve mentioned a couple times now that, in this first section of the body of John’s Gospel—chapter 1 verse 19 to chapter 2 verse 11—we have the Apostle’s record of a single week of Jesus’ early ministry. Day One consisted of John the Baptist’s testimony to the delegation of priests and Levites and Pharisees that came to question him about his ministry. Was he the Messiah, or maybe Elijah, or the Coming Prophet? No. He was just a voice, crying out for the people to prepare for the coming of Yahweh—of the true King, the real Messiah.
And we found in John’s testimony a model for our own evangelistic witness to Jesus: “Not me, but Him!” John deflected all glory away from himself, and he ascribed all glory to Jesus alone. And inasmuch as we have been commissioned by Christ to be witnesses to His Gospel, we are to testify to this lost world of the worth and majesty of our Savior, proclaiming what He has done for us, on His cross, and in us—as He transforms our lives to hate sin and love righteousness. In our testimony, there must always be (1) the negation of the witness, and (2) the exaltation of the Word.
And so, Day One of this early week of Jesus’ ministry was John’s call to “Prepare the way for the Lord!” Last time, we came to Day Two—“the next day,” verse 29 says. And on this second day, John moves from, “Get yourselves ready for Messiah!” to “Look! Messiah is here!” John 1 verse 29: “The next day he saw Jesus coming to him”—and Jesus would have been coming straight from His forty days of temptation in the wilderness, recorded for us in Matthew 4 and Luke 4. And John sees Jesus coming and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” The day before, John told the delegation from Jerusalem to clear the way for the coming Lord. Today, John tells all of Israel: “Here is the One I’ve been preaching about!”
And I mentioned that verses 29 to 34 not only continue John’s witness to Jesus, which began in verses 19 to 28. They also form the beginning of John’s introduction of the people of Israel to Jesus. And the forerunner introduces his successor by applying to Jesus a litany of titles. From verse 29 all the way through the end of the chapter in verse 51, Jesus is called “Lamb of God,” “Son of God,” Son of Man,” “Messiah,” “the King of Israel,” “Rabbi,” and “Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote.” And so, the narrative moves from calling the leaders to prepare their hearts for Messiah, to calling all Israel to recognize Him for who He is.
Let’s read this passage—the events of Day Two of New Creation week. John chapter 1, verses 29 to 34. “The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is He on behalf of whom I said, “After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me. 31I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water.”’ 32John testified saying, ‘I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. 33I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, “He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. 34I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.”’”
And we mentioned last time that in these verses, even without using formal titles in each case, we have four descriptions of Jesus, which can basically be summarized in four titles. Four titles that identify Jesus for who He is, and which call us to trust Him and to worship Him above all others.
Review I: The Lamb of God (v. 29)
And we devoted our entire sermon two weeks ago to the first of those titles. Verse 29 says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” And we mentioned that, of all that Jesus is to us, He is the Lamb of God before and above everything. When John the Baptist sees Jesus coming toward him, the very first thing he says is not, “Behold the Great Example, whose life we can imitate in order to please God”! It’s not, “Behold the Prophet and Teacher, whose instruction will enlighten us and free us from our ignorance”! It’s not, “Behold the nonviolent revolutionary who comes to enact social justice”! First of all—before everything else—Jesus is the Lamb of God.
And that is because what we sinners need—first of all, before everything else—is a substitutionary atoning sacrifice for our sin that frees us from the just wrath and punishment of God. This is what lambs were for, in Israel: to be sacrificed, day after day after day, as guilt offerings, and sin offerings. Why? Because we are sinners, and “the wages of sin,” Romans 6:23, “is death.” “The soul who sins” by breaking the holy Law of the God of heaven, Ezekiel 18:4, “will die.”
And yet God had graciously provided a system of worship by which His sinful people could be spared from their deserved death through the death of substitutionary sacrifices. Leviticus 17:11: God says, “The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.” Sinners deserve to die. But God has graciously stipulated that the blood of sacrificial animals may take the place of sinners, and sinners’ lives be spared.
And there were all kinds of animals that were sacrificed each day—including a lamb in the morning and another lamb in the evening. But the pinnacle sacrifice—perhaps second only to the Day of Atonement—was the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, which commemorated Israel’s redemption out of slavery in Egypt, when God saw the blood of the spotless lamb on the doorposts of the houses of His people, and passed over their sins, and spared them from the angel of death.
John the Baptist says, “Jesus is the Lamb of God!” The Apostle Paul says it explicitly in 1 Corinthians 5:7: “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” In 1 Peter 1:18–19, Peter says: we have not been redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold, but with “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless.” Just as the blood of the slain Passover lamb protected Israel from the execution of God’s judgment, so also does the blood of the slain sacrificial Lamb, Jesus, protect His people from the wrath of God against our sin.
There are so many things that people today want Jesus to be for them. They want Him as a meek and mild moral example. They want Him as a model for political revolution. They want Him as a kind of a guru, whose teachings they can sort of pick and choose according to their own personal tastes, and then claim those teachings have guided them to enlightenment. But this text has taught us, GraceLife, that before He is anything else, Jesus is the sinner’s substitute—the sole object of our faith and trust for forgiveness from the sins which we cannot atone for ourselves. He is first of all the Lamb of God, who will bear the believer’s sins in Himself, and thereby appease the righteous wrath of God against our sins, by receiving the condemnation that we so richly deserved.
Make no mistake: Jesus is King; He is Messiah; He is Son of God and Son of Man! The Apostle John is going to record Him being called all of those things almost immediately. He brings us every blessing in the heavenly places, Ephesians 1:3! He is our Prophet and Teacher, who becomes our wisdom from God, 1 Corinthians 1:30! He is our example in suffering righteously, whose steps we are to walk in, 1 Peter 2! But dear people, hear it plainly: Jesus will be none of those things to you, before He is your Lamb! Every blessing is downstream of His being our substitutionary atoning sacrifice, who stands in our place to do for us what we could not do for ourselves: to satisfy the righteous wrath of God against our sins.
And so before we go any further, once again, I can’t pass this by without calling you all to behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, with the eyes of saving faith. The first and great duty of every sinner on the planet is to behold this Lamb in faith—turning from your sin, turning even from your righteousness; turning away from every other rival source of atonement or satisfaction for your sins that you would offer to God. Turn away from all of it, and put your trust entirely upon this Lamb to take away your sins. He alone is God and Man! He alone is sinless and spotless! He alone is possessed of an infinite righteousness that He may impute to innumerable sinners who trust in Him! Dear churchgoing unbeliever: Behold the Lamb of God by faith this morning, and be released from that burden of sin which He is glad to “take away” from you.
II. The Superior King (v. 30)
Well, so much, then, for our review of the previous sermon. In the second place, not only is Jesus the Lamb of God. He is also, number two, the Superior King. And we find this in verse 30. John says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’”
Now, we’ve seen this sentence before. Back in the prologue, as the Apostle John gives his first formal introduction to Jesus, he makes two, semi-parenthetical, almost awkward or out-of-place references to John the Baptist. And in verse 15, the Apostle John refers to the testimony that John the Baptist gives here in verse 30, to the supremacy of Christ, the superiority of Jesus.
John says, “He who comes after me has surpassed me,” as some translations put it. Jesus was born six months after His cousin John, according to Luke 1:26, and of course Jesus began His ministry after John had already been engaged in his. And theirs was a culture in which chronological precedence was an automatic indicator of superiority. The predecessor was always considered greater than the successor. But John says, Jesus, who comes after him, has surpassed him—has come to outrank him. Literally, you translate this phrase, “He who comes after me has become before me.”
And not only was John Jesus’ predecessor. According to Jesus, John was the greatest man who ever lived up to that point in history. Matthew 11:11: Jesus says, “Among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist!” He was the last of the Old Testament prophets; he was the first herald of the New Covenant; and he was the forerunner of Messiah. John was the pivot point of all biblical history, and so Jesus says he was the greatest man who ever lived. But John himself says, “This One, who comes after me, is superior to me in every way!”
And why is that? What is the ground of Jesus’ superiority over His predecessor? Look at it again: “He who comes after me has come to be before me, for”—because—“He existed before me.” Literally, “because He was before me.” “He comes after me, because, according to His humanity, He was born after I was, and began His ministry after I began mine. But He was before me, because, according to His deity, He is the uncreated, eternal God of heaven and earth!” You see, not only was Jesus before John the Baptist. He was, Colossians 1:17, “before all things”! “His goings forth,” Micah 5:2, “are…from the days of eternity”! John says, “I am of yesterday; He is from eternity! (cf. Henry). And so He is superior to me, whom He calls the greatest man to ever live. I am the prophet of the Most High; He is the Son of the Most High. I am a minister of the New Covenant; He is the Mediator of the New Covenant!”
But not only “superior,” but the superior King. Why do I say, “King,” here, in this main point? Because John says, “This is He on behalf of whom I said,” after me comes the superior One. When did John say that? As he was fulfilling His role as the forerunner to the Messiah; as he was being that voice, crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” John quotes Isaiah 40 verses 3 to 5, and he applies it to himself as the voice. Isaiah 40 says, “A voice is calling, ‘Clear the way for Yahweh in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; Then the glory of Yahweh will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together.’”
You see, in the ancient world, as a King or a Prince would plan to travel between cities, he would send a forerunner to go ahead of him and announce his coming, so the people would be able to prepare his way. Often, there wouldn’t be traversable roadways between populated areas, and so the King’s chariots wouldn’t be able to carry him through. And so the people who were expecting the King’s visit would prepare a passable pathway: to till up the rocks and make the way smooth, to fill in the divots and valleys so that there would be even ground.
Isaiah was saying that King Yahweh was coming to Israel, and so they must prepare for His coming! And John says, “He is here! Your hearts are as desolate as the wilderness I’m crying out in, with no road for this King to travel upon as He comes to you in His kindness and grace. You need to prepare in your own hearts a smooth, level roadway, one that’s forged by repentance from sin, so that you are ready to meet the King of glory! He Himself is Yahweh! In Him, the glory of Yahweh is revealed to all flesh!”
And so you see: this Jesus did not just surpass John! He existed before John, because He is God from all eternity! He is not just superior; He is the superior King, who is Yahweh God Himself, whose pathway must be cleared in the wilderness of the people’s hearts. “Lift up your heads, O gates, And lift them up, O ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! Who is this King of glory? Yahweh of hosts, He is the King of glory” (Ps 24:9–10). John says, “He is the King! I am just the forerunner who announces the King’s coming! And so He who has come after me has become before me!”
O, dear people, is He your King of glory? Do you see in Him the beauty and the glory of the eternal God displayed in your own nature? And has that beauty compelled you to bend the knee to Him as your King, superior to the greatest man who ever lived? Greater in glory than all the idols of your heart? More lovely and worthy of obedience than all the painted beauties of sin? If He is a King, worthy of the kind of reception that John the Baptist calls for Him to receive, do you so receive Him? Has your heart prepared Him room?
And not just have you received Him by faith, one day, long ago. Fellow believer: does your heart receive Him now—and submit to Him today—as the King, superior to all rival sources of righteousness, and all rival sources of satisfaction and joy? Can you sing the hymn with integrity: “Jesus! I do now receive Him! More than all in Him I find!” There is more joy and more pleasure to be found in Jesus than in the sins that so enthrall and allure us, and tempt us away from Him. He is the Lamb of God! And He is the superior King! And so He is worthy of our trust, and He is worthy of our day-by-day, hour-by-hour, love, and praise, and single-minded devotion.
III. The Anointed Messiah (vv. 31–33)
Well, not only is Jesus the Lamb of God; and not only is He the superior King. A third title that John applies to Jesus that evokes our trust and our worship is, number three, He is the Anointed Messiah. And we find this in verses 31 to 33. John says, “‘I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water.’ John testified saying, ‘I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize [with] water said to me, “He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes [with] the Holy Spirit.”’”
John begins by saying, “I did not recognize Him.” Other translations say, “I did not know Him” (e.g., KJV, ESV), but I think that reading obscures the proper sense. John is not saying that he had never met Jesus before the day that he baptized Him in the Jordan River. Jesus’ mother Mary and John’s mother Elizabeth were cousins, after all. It’s difficult to think they had no knowledge of each other whatsoever. No, the point John is making is, as the NAS puts it, is that John didn’t recognize who the Messiah was going to be. He didn’t know that the promised Messiah whose coming John was announcing, was Jesus.
Which, just as an aside, is clear testimony to the genuine humanity of Jesus. He didn’t hover three inches above the ground. He didn’t glow, or have a halo. This refutes the fabrications of the so-called “Gnostic Gospels” that report Jesus performing miracles as a child. If He had been turning clay birds into real birds, like the Gospel of Thomas said, John the Baptist would not have said he didn’t recognize Jesus to be the Messiah until He came to him to be baptized. Jesus didn’t only appear to be human; He was truly man, so much so that His second cousin didn’t know who He was until He began His public ministry!
And you could understand why John would want to allay that concern. Someone might make the objection, “Ok, I see what’s going on, here. After 400 years of silence, ‘God’ called you into prophetic ministry, and He told you that you were going to announce the coming of Messiah. And that Messiah just happens to be your second cousin? This isn’t from God! You guys just got together and thought you’d make a family business out of twisting prophecy and deceiving God’s people!” And so John says, “That’s not it at all! When God set me apart and appointed me to my ministry of water baptism for repentance, He told me, verse 33, that the One on whom I would see the Spirit descending and remaining: that was the Messiah who baptizes with the Holy Spirit! I had no idea that the person I would see the Spirit descending on was going to be Jesus, but it was!”
That’s what John is getting at, here. There was no collusion. No conspiracy between him and his second cousin to deceive people. So far from thrusting himself into a ministry of water baptism so that he could perpetrate some Messianic deception, John says, verse 31, “I came baptizing in water” “so that He might be manifested to Israel.” “I didn’t seize this ministry for myself.” Verse 33: “God sent me to baptize with water. And the whole reason I’m doing this is so that Israel’s Messiah would be made manifest to her. My job is to lead you to Him. All I’m doing here is dunking people in water. But that water doesn’t wash the soul. My ministry cannot confer the grace that it pictures. But I am performing the sign that God told me to perform in order to point to the spiritual cleansing that we all must receive from the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”
And again: John says that God told him that the way he would know who the Messiah was going to be was through the sign of the descending Holy Spirit. Look at verse 33, “I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize [with] water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes [with] the Holy Spirit.’” And this is precisely what John testifies that he saw. Verse 32: “John testified”—he gave his solemn, eye-witness testimony; Matthew Henry said, “…with all the seriousness and solemnity of witness-bearing[,] he made affidavit of it”—“saying, ‘I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him.’”
And the instance John is referring to is when he baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. Matthew 3:16 says, “After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he [John] saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him.” Luke 3:22 says, “And the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, ‘You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.’” Now, obviously, the Holy Spirit of God is fully God. He is a divine person, and so fully subsists in the undivided divine essence. And that means, like the Father (and like the Son according to the divine nature), the Holy Spirit is invisible. And so when John says, “I have seen the Spirit,” he is referring to this “bodily form” that all of the Gospel writers liken to the form of a dove.
Why a dove? Well, in Scripture, the dove is associated with a number of things. In general, it is thought to be a symbol of meekness, gentleness, and peace. Commentators often make the observation that in Genesis chapter 8, after the rains of the flood had ceased, and Noah’s ark rested on Mount Ararat, Noah sent out a dove, who would seek for dry land to light upon. But because the waters hadn’t yet subsided from the earth, the dove found no place to land and returned to the ark. So, he tried the same thing a week later, and the dove returned with a leaf from an olive tree—a sign of peace, that God’s judgment upon the earth had abated, and that it would soon be safe to exit the ark and return to the land. And so some have said that a similar symbol of peace was sent from heaven, as the Spirit of God descended upon the Son of God, and identified Him as God’s anointed Messiah, who would bring an end to the judgment of God upon the earth through the salvation He would accomplish.
Elsewhere, the dove is pictured as a symbol of purity. Several times in the Song of Solomon, the husband calls his bride, “My dove, my perfect one.” And in one of those instances, that is followed up by a comment that “She is the pure child of the one who bore her.” And so, the purity of the dove would obviously be a symbol of the holiness of the Holy Spirit, as well as the holiness of the Messiah, who would be the spotless Lamb of God, who would be sacrificed to take away the sin of the world.
And in fact, I think that is the main reference that John’s audience would have understood by this reference to a dove. The dove was a sacrificial animal in the Levitical system. Several times in the Book of Leviticus, we’re told that if a worshiper couldn’t afford a lamb for a burnt offering or a guilt offering, she could bring two turtledoves for the sacrifice. The dove was the poor man’s sacrifice! The lowest, most humble, poorest worshiper in Israel always knew that he could afford a dove to offer to Yahweh as an offering for his sins. It’s almost as if John, who has just called Jesus the Lamb of God, is saying, “And if you’re so poor of a sinner, that you can’t conceive of yourself even bringing a lamb for your sacrifice, this Lamb of God is anointed with the Dove of the Holy Spirit!” He comes for the lowest of the low, the poorest of the poor. The One who is gentle and humble in heart, receives the humblest of sinners who come to Him in simple faith. He was anointed for His death as the sacrifice that would take away the sins of every one who trusts in Him.
But the point isn’t so much the form the Holy Spirit took as He descended on Jesus. The point is that the Holy Spirit did descend on the Son from heaven, and that He remained on Him as God’s Holy anointing. In the Old Testament, priests were anointed with oil as a symbol of their consecration unto the service of God (Exod 29:29). The prophets were anointed, as they were sent into the ministry of the proclamation of the Word of God (1 Kgs 19:16; 1 Chron 16:22). And so also the kings were anointed unto their service as rulers over God’s people. You remember how Samuel poured oil over Saul’s head, kissed him and said, 1 Samuel 10:1, “Has not Yahweh anointed you a ruler over His inheritance?” And how in 1 Samuel 16:13, “Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed [David] in the midst of his brothers; and,” the text says, “the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily upon David from that day forward.” Anointing was God’s setting apart and strengthening, with the power of the Holy Spirit, His servants to minister to Him in whatever roles He placed them—whether prophet, priest, or king.
Well, as the Old Testament promise unfolded of a perfect priest, of an ultimate prophet, of a final King who would come and rule over God’s people in righteousness, this promised one was called Messiah—mashiach—which is just the same word for “anointed one.” Daniel 9:25 speaks of “Messiah the Prince”—the anointed ruler—who will be cut off and have nothing, and who will finish the transgression, make an end of sin, make atonement for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness (Dan 9:24).
And rather than being anointed with oil, this Messiah would be anointed with the Holy Spirit. Turn back to Isaiah, chapter 61. There the prophet says, “The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me, Because Yahweh has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners.” The Messiah-Prophet would be anointed with the Spirit of God to bring good news to the poor in spirit, broken over their sin, and looking for a Savior.
Now turn back to Isaiah 42. Here we have God announcing the anointing of His Servant, whom, we know from the rest of the Servant Songs of Isaiah, will be the Suffering Servant, who will perform the priestly work of atonement for God’s people by the sacrifice of Himself. Yahweh says, “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish. He will faithfully bring forth justice.” The Messiah-Priest will be anointed with the Spirit of God to work righteousness on behalf of the bruised reeds and dimly burning wicks who cry out for God’s grace of forgiveness.
And now turn back to Isaiah 11. Here we have a prophecy of the Davidic King—the shoot that springs forth from the stem of Jesse, David’s father. Isaiah 11 and verse 1: “Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of Yahweh will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh. And He will delight in the fear of Yahweh, And He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear; But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, And faithfulness the belt about His waist.” The Messiah-King will be anointed with the Spirit of God so that His human nature would be perfected in wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, and the fear of the Lord, so that He may be a faithful King to rule over the nations.
And seven hundred years later, John says, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him.” This is the Anointed Prophet, who proclaims Good News to the poor. In fact, Luke 4:17–21 records how Jesus declares that He is the fulfillment of Isaiah 61:1. John says: This is the Anointed Priest, the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, to cleanse the conscience of everyone who trusts in Him. This is the Anointed King, who is perfected by the Spirit of God to serve His people righteously. In Acts 10:38, Peter says, “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” This is the anointed Messiah!
And note, verse 32 says the Spirit “remained upon Him.” This speaks to the permanent and perfective indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Christ. Remember, Isaiah 11:2 said, “The Spirit of Yahweh will rest on Him”—not just come upon Him from time to time for extraordinary seasons of empowerment, but to rest and remain upon Him. In John 3:34, John the Baptist says that God gives Jesus the Spirit without measure. He was as full of the Holy Spirit as a man could ever be—as Matthew Henry says, “so that he could at no time be found either unqualified for his work himself or unfurnished for the supply of those that [look] to him for his grace.”
You say, “Now wait a minute! Jesus was Himself God in the flesh! Not only was He already perfect on account of His deity, but He also already always had the Holy Spirit! He and the Father and the Spirit mutually indwelt one another from all eternity!” And yes, that’s true. But though Jesus was fully God, He wasn’t only God. He was also fully man. And what these passages all tell us about the Messiah is that He would be so anointed with the Holy Spirit, without measure, that His humanity would be strengthened by the Holy Spirit to be perfect humanity. Insofar as Jesus is God, He is the epitome of all perfection by virtue of His native power as the eternal Son! But insofar as Jesus is man, His humanity is perfect humanity by virtue of His being anointed with the Holy Spirit without measure.
And while the incarnate Son was anointed with the Spirit from the moment of His conception—such that His humanity was always perfect humanity by the power of the Spirit—His baptism was the time that Jesus was clearly identified and consecrated as the anointed Messiah in the view of men, and set apart and equipped for the mediatorial work He was about to undertake. So Calvin says, “Not that [Jesus] had formerly been destitute of [the Holy Spirit], but because he might be said to be then consecrated by a solemn rite. … At that time, therefore, he received the Spirit not only for himself, but for his people; and on that account his descent was visible, that we may know that there dwells in him an abundance of all gifts of which we are empty and destitute. … the reason why the Spirit was beheld in visible form, and remained on Christ, was, that he might water all his people with his fullness” (68).
And what is it to “water all His people with His fullness”? Verse 33: It is for Him to be “the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.” It is not just that the anointed Messiah would Himself be pervaded by the Holy Spirit. It is that He would, out of that fullness, cause us as His people to be pervaded by the Holy Spirit. We are baptized—immersed—into the Holy Spirit, so that just as one who is baptized in water is plunged into the water, and enveloped by it, so that no part of you remains untouched by the water; so also, the one baptized in the Holy Spirit is plunged into the Holy Spirit, and as it were enveloped by Him, imbued with His presence and influence, so that no part of you remains untouched by the Spirit of God! One writer says, “the Spirit irrigates all believers’ souls with the heavenly graces of Christ” (Beeke and Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology, 3:140).
Which means this baptism with the Holy Spirit is nothing short of union with Christ, whereby all that is His becomes ours. It is nothing short of regeneration, the granting of divine life, the purifying renovation of the new birth by the Spirit of God. This is the great promise of the New Covenant in Ezekiel 36:25–27, where God says, “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
O, dear people: Here is the anointed Messiah, the promised Prophet, Priest, and King, full of the Holy Spirit of God, without measure, who baptizes all who come to Him in the same Holy Spirit, and immerses us into the life of the Triune God of heaven, and by that Spirit transforms us into His very own image: the image of the invisible God! How worthy He is of your trust! How securely may your confidence for forgiveness, and righteousness, and wisdom, and sanctification be placed upon Him! How worthy He is of your praise, and love, and devotion, and obedience!
IV. The Son of God (v. 34)
Well, that brings us, just briefly, to a fourth title that John applies to Jesus that calls forth our trust and our worship of Him. And that is, number four, He is the Son of God. Look with me at verse 34. John says, “I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
At Jesus’ baptism, after John saw the Holy Spirit descending upon the Son in the form of a dove, what was it that the Father testified from heaven? Matthew 3:17: “And behold, a voice out of the heavens said, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” This is the summit and conclusion of John the Baptist’s testimony. This is entire purpose of the Apostle John’s Gospel. Chapter 20 verse 31: “these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ”—the anointed Messiah—“the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”
And we spoke about this divine sonship when we had our sermons on John 1:14, where Jesus is called “the only-begotten from the Father.” Preeminently, when Scripture speaks of Jesus as being the Son of God, it is saying that He is consubstantial—of the same nature as the Father. Others in Scripture are called God’s son. In Exodus 4:22, God says, “Israel is My son, My firstborn.” In 2 Samuel 7:14, God says of Solomon, “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me.” John 1:12 says that all who receive Christ by faith are given “the right to become children of God” by adoption. Whether Israel as a nation, the king of Israel in specific, or all believers in Jesus, their sonship is adopted sonship. But with this One, on whom the Spirit descended and remained, He is the natural Son of God! He is the Son of God by nature! And just like my son is human because I am human,—he has his nature from me as his father—so also the Father’s Son is God because the Father is God. The Son of God has the identical divine nature from His Father who is God.
Think of it! This man, who was so ordinarily-human that John the Baptist knew Him from childhood and didn’t recognize that He would be the Messiah, is the one and only eternally begotten Son of God! Fully and truly man, and fully and truly God! The eternal radiance of the Father’s glory! The very image of the invisible God! The One to whom the Father has given to have life in Himself! The Father’s eternally uttered Word of wisdom! The King of heaven and the praise of the angels! God of very God!
Conclusion
And, dear people, as I’ve said already: He who was the praise of the angels from the foundation of creation—He who was the delight of the Father and the Holy Spirit from all eternity, before the foundation of creation—He is worthy of your praise, and your delight! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! The Superior King of glory, whose greatness surpasses the greatest men who have ever lived! The Anointed Messiah, who is filled with the Holy Spirit without measure, and so out of the richness of His treasures baptizes His people in the Spirit, so that all of that richness becomes ours! And the Son of God Himself—the eternal God in human flesh! Who could be better qualified for your unreserved, unbounded trust? What representative could be better equipped to sustain your case before God in the courtroom of heaven?
Dear sinner, if you are here this morning and not trusting in Jesus—if He is not representing your sinful soul in the courtroom of heaven—dear friend, you remain dead in your sins. Guilty, with no advocate, and no line of defense against the just wrath of Holy God. You stand upon the precipice of eternal judgment, as if you were at the mouth of a volcano, staring into the bottomless flames of hell itself. And there is nothing that’s stopping you from going over that edge into those flames except the grace of the Savior you so hard-heartedly reject.
Friend, be reasonable. You can’t atone for your own sins. You can’t provide yourself a righteousness that answers to the holiness of the God of heaven. You need a Lamb to die in your place! You need a King to do for you what you can’t do for yourself! You need a Messiah to baptize you in the Holy Spirit and unite you to Himself and grant you spiritual life! You need the Son of God to accomplish on your behalf the infinite righteousness that God requires for fellowship with Him!
And look: we have seen the One who is perfectly suited to your need—the One who is all those things, and who promises to be all those things, to everyone who trusts in Him! And He holds His hands out to you still this morning. Despite all your rejections of Him to this point in your life, He still cries out, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and ‘you will find rest for your souls.’ For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” O, come to Christ, who lived, and died, and rose again to save sinners! He is worthy of your trust! and He saves from sin and death, and gives rest for souls wearied under the burden and penalty of sin. Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.
And to those who have trusted Him, my fellow believers: O, He is still worthy of your trust today! He was not only trustworthy for your justification; He is trustworthy for your sanctification—for every hour of life until He brings you securely to glorification! In trial, in temptation; in plenty and in want; in victory and in defeat: Jesus is worthy of your wholehearted, settled trust. He is able to meet every need you could possibly have. He is able to bestow every blessing you could possibly wish for. And He is willing—more willing to meet those needs and bestow those blessings than you are eager to receive them. Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in the Son of God, the Lamb of God, and the anointed Messiah.
And worship Him. Don’t only trust Him, but behold the Lamb, behold your King, behold the Anointed One, and behold the Son! And let your heart be so thrilled by what you see in Him—in all the beauty of His glory—and let it sing to Him in praise. Let it loosen the grip on your lusts. Let it tighten the cords of your love to Him, so that it actually changes your life, and you become more like Him; so that you hate the sins He hates, and so that you love the righteousness and holiness that He loves. Behold your God, seated on His throne, and come, let us adore Him. Not only in song on Sundays, but let us adore Him every day of our lives, in the way that we live our lives in obedience to all that He has commanded us.