A Three-Fold Testimony
Luke • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
When a preacher gets to a familiar text that the congregation would know well, it is tempting to preach it in a new way. And so, suddenly the focus changes from the main point of a text to some minute detail in the text. I hope I haven’t done that this morning. I hope and pray that I am faithful to Luke’s message in these two verses. And let me say upfront that yes, this is a great passage to prove the Trinity as we have the Father Speaking, the Son being baptized, and the Spirit descending all at the same time, but that is not the main point of the text. The main point of the text is to help us to see who Jesus was. The point of the text is to bear witness as to Jesus’s identity. And it is shown through three acts of the Trinity—though the focus is not on the proof of the Trinity. Those three acts are first: The Son Praying. Secondly, the Spirit Descending. Finally, the Father Speaking. I want to speak at length on the first point, and just say a few words on the other two.
The Son Praying
The Spirit Descending
The Father Speaking
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened,
and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
The Son Praying
The Son Praying
When I was translating the passage for this week, I noticed something in the text that gave me pause. That’s one of the great advantages of translating a text. It slows you down. You read each word carefully. It’s nearly impossible to just glance over a text when you’re reading it in a different language. And what I noticed in this text was that Luke was nearly passive when it regarded Jesus’s baptism and Luke’s emphasis on Jesus’s praying.
It was not that Luke skipped over Jesus’ baptism. Clearly he didn’t. But notice how he wrote it.
Luke 3:21 (ESV)
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized. . .
That is literally passive. A passive verb is when the subject receives the action. Johnny was hit by the ball. John is the subject and he received the action: was hit by the ball. We get Luke’s account of Jesus’s baptism in fourteen words in English; it took up eleven words in Greek. Luke doesn’t even point out that John was the one baptizing him. Matthew’s account of just the baptism take sup three and a half verses. Mark was only a verse and a half, but it took 26 words. Both Matthew and Mark give details that Luke ignores because Luke, while inform us that Jesus was baptized (passive), was not interested in the details of the baptism itself. He was interested in the details following the baptism.
In the Greek, it literally says, “And it happened—when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized—while he was praying, heaven opened.” The part about the baptism is background. Luke wanted us to focus on what came afterward. So the first thing I noticed was that Luke’s account of the baptism was passive; it wasn’t as important as Matthew or Mark’s accounts. Yet I also noticed what I had never seen before. Let’s see if you see it.
And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him;
And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened,
Luke is the only gospel writer to mention Jesus’s praying. Incidentally, John didn’t mention it either. Luke was a huge proponent of prayer. He wrote more on Jesus’s prayer-life than Matthew, Mark, or John! He did not just give lip-service to prayer. As I was studying this text this week, I was brought under such conviction about my prayer-life. As I was studying this passage, I came to see that my prayer-life is woefully lacking. I, more than anything, give lip-service to prayer. Before studying for this sermon, I would tell you that prayer is an important aspect of the Christian life. I might even use the word “vital” to the Christian life. But probably like most of you, I have had seasons of prayerlessness. I’ve had moments when I’ve struggled to pray, struggled with wanting to pray. The longer I go without praying, the harder it becomes to pray. I’ve grown bored with prayer. I have grown stale in my prayers. I’d say that prayer is important, even vital, but in my heart I’d have my doubts. In my life, I could go days without any real prayer time.
And I came across this text. And I began asking the question about how heaven opening fit in with the praying aspect. The word “opened” is an infinitive verb. We often use the word “to” in front of the verb to show an infinitive. “To open.” In Greek it could read “praying to open.” So I was asking how these words worked together. Was heaven opened as a result of Jesus’s prayer? Was Jesus praying with the purpose of opening heaven? I read pretty much any commentary I could get my hands on. I went to Bruce and asked his opinion. I read exegetical works and consulted my Greek texts from school. And in the end, I came to the conclusion that heaven opening was neither the purpose of Jesus’s prayer nor the result of Jesus’s prayer. But rather correlated with Jesus’s prayer.
You may have heard someone mark the difference between causation and correlation. One thing may cause another thing to occur. However, if one cannot find that A causes B, but that A and B continually happen at the same time, then they are related. There is a correlation between them. And that is what I found to be true here. I cannot say that Jesus’s prayer caused heaven to open. But it is correlated to it. In essence, there is a correlation between praying and God’s doing miraculous work. And it is that which Luke seems to want Theophilus and us to see.
“And it happened, while Jesus was praying heaven opened...”
Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”
Jesus was praying and about to reveal to them who he really was and what he was about to do.
And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white.
Jesus was praying and was then transfigured.
And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
Luke, also having written acts, shows that it was not just Jesus’s praying that was correlated with God’s miraculous movement, but also those who followed him. Spurgeon pointed out, in one of his sermons, that the disciples never asked Jesus to teach them to teach even though he taught as one with authority and not as the scribes and pharisees. They never asked him to preach though he preached some of the most famous sermons ever recorded. They never asked him to teach them to heal though thousands were healed by his ministry. What astounded them the most, and what they really wanted to learn from him is how to pray. Why? Because prayer cannot be disassociated from the others.
In Luke 7:12, we read Jesus went up into the mountain to pray and then selected his disciples. Certainly I believe he prayed about who to have as his 12, but in verse 17, he is coming down the mountain and preaching the sermon on the plain; verses 13-16 are just the naming of the disciples! When his disciples could not cast out demons from a young man, and Jesus did, they asked why. And Jesus told them it could only be done through fasting and prayer.
Beloved if you want to see the heavens opened, then pray. Not literally. I’m not guaranteeing you that you’ll see the sky cut in two. But I am saying that if you want God to move, you will pray. We will pray. Spurgeon wrote, “If you beloved friends, want to have the witness of God either at your baptism or on any subsequent act of your life, you must obtain it by prayer. The Holy Ghost never sets his seal to a prayerless religion. It has not in it that of which he can approve.”
How dare we say we want to see God move when we do not pray!
Many will say (and I am one of them) that sometimes it feels like my prayers are bouncing of the ceiling. Ever felt that way? Don’t you dare believe it. Our prayers penetrate heaven and go to the throne of grace. There are times when God does not answer prayer, sure. James said when we use prayer wrongly to spend it on wrong desires, God will say no. Peter says that when we husbands refuse to live with out wives in an understanding manner, God will say no. But that does not mean that our prayers do not get to the throne. It does not mean that they are ricocheting off the ceiling.
Paul prayed three times for God to remove the thorn of flesh from his side. How it must have felt that those prayers were going no where, but then he heard it. His prayers had been heard, but they were not for his good.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
If you are a child of God, know that you not only have the right to come before the throne, but you have the privilege to do so. God wants to hear from his children. He loves to spend time with you and with me, infinitely more than we want to spend time with him.
We live in a world where if a website doesn’t open up in two seconds or less, we become annoyed. We’re checking our bandwidth and rolling our eyes and grunting. We want what we want immediately. We live in a world of Amazon Prime so that we click on an item and within two-days, sometimes the same day, we get what we want. Prayer is not click and God is not Amazon. God is not measured in Megabytes per second.
He certainly can work fast; heaven was opened in a split second and the Holy Spirit descended so quickly. But God does not always, and in fact rarely does, answer our prayers so quickly. God is not some cosmic computer nor is he some cosmic genie that answers our three wishes whenever we demand it. He is a Father who loves his children enough to hear from them and then give them what is best and when it is best. That ought not to dilute prayer; it ought to enhance it!
That’s why Jesus told the parable of the widow and the unjust judge recorded in Luke!
And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
Why? Because prayer is at minimum correlated with God’s actions! So I say again, if we want to see heaven opened, if we want to see God do amazing things, we must be a people of prayer!
The Spirit Descending
The Spirit Descending
Which leads us to the second actions in the text. The first was the Son praying, and the second is the Spirit descending.
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened,
and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
I quickly want to speak to this action. I told you when we first started Luke that Luke wrote of the Holy Spirit more than all the other gospel writers combined! This is the ninth time in three chapters that Luke has mentioned the Holy Spirit. Now, as we go on the frequency of references to the Spirit becomes less, but only because Luke has so focused on the movement of the Spirit up front. He has established that Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, John, and Jesus were all filled with the Holy Spirit. This has been a movement of the Holy Spirit from beginning to end. Nothing is being done without the Holy Spirit in Jesus’s life. The same can be said about the book of Acts. The disciples were ordered to do nothing until they were baptized or filled with the Holy Spirit.
I go back to Spurgeon’s comment. “If you beloved friends, want to have the witness of God either at your baptism or on any subsequent act of your life, you must obtain it by prayer. The Holy Ghost never sets his seal to a prayerless religion. It has not in it that of which he can approve.” While we may be indwelled by the Holy Spirit, we will not be empowered by him without prayer. The two go hand in hand. We can do nothing of consequence without the Holy Spirit moving and the Holy Spirit does not move without prayer.
Jesus, already God the Son, now has the Spirit descend upon him. None of the gospel writers tell us why. John seems to get the closest when he states that John the Baptist was given the sign that whomever had the Spirit descend upon him as a dove was the Messiah. I think that is a good reason. The Spirit came down as proof of Jesus’s Messiahship. The Holy Spirit gave testimony that Jesus was the Messiah which led to John, the greatest prophet of Israel, to also give testimony to Jesus being the Messiah.
Beloved, the Holy Spirit is a witness who gives testimony, not only to who Jesus is—the Son of God, the anointed Messiah—but also to who we are.
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Though we have never seen heaven opened in such a way as Jesus did at his baptism while praying, we have had heaven’s doors opened to us. Though we have not had the Holy Spirit descend upon us as a dove as Jesus did, we have that same Holy Spirit indwelling us the moment that trusted in Jesus. He bears witness that we are God’s children—always and forever children of the living God.
The Father Speaking
The Father Speaking
Which leads us to the third action of the text: the Father speaking. Notice the words he said:
and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Another testimony given. The Holy Spirit testified by his descent and now the Father testifies by his words. It’s important to remember that God had already declared Jesus his son.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,
It is not that Jesus has suddenly become God’s Son, but rather that the Father is testifying for all to hear at this baptism that Jesus is indeed his Son. And it is in his Son that he takes divine pleasure. And it is this phrase, “with you I am well pleased,” that I want to focus.
First, it was not because of Jesus’s baptism that the Father was well pleased. It was not even because of his praying that he was well-pleased. It was because Jesus was his Son. Isaiah would use the word servant, but he would describe this event 750 years before its happening.
Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.
In Isaiah 41, God had presented the patriarchs as his servants, his chosen ones. He called Abraham his friend—literally the one whom I love. And yet, they were not always obedient. Their offspring, the nation of Israel would rebel tremendously against God. So that by the end of Isaiah 41, God is challenging the gods of Israel.
The last verse,
Behold, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their metal images are empty wind.
Behold, they are a delusion; their works are nothing; their metal images are empty wind.
And then
Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.
The contrast between what Israel’s so-called gods who cast them out of metal and carved them out of wood to serve them and God’s servant—the Messiah—who was anointed with the Holy Spirit and would bring forth justice, not just to Israel but to all nations. In Isaiah 41:27, just three verses before, God declares that it is he who had formerly declared good news to Jerusalem, in other words, the people of Israel. And he would do so again.
And it was these same words that the angels spoke about at Jesus’s birth. They brought good news of great joy, and then the said something that ought to catch our attention.
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
At Jesus’s baptism, we see the verb form. At the Shepherd’s Field, we see the noun form. Eudokia-to think well of, to find pleasure in, to be pleased with. Some of you here struggle with these words. Not that God finds pleasure in his Son, but that he could ever find pleasure in you.
Now in Luke 2:14, it is obvious that the angels are referring to God’s sovereign pleasure. As Philip Ryken said, this is a first-century way of speaking of God’s elect. Thus, God in his good pleasure has bestowed the Shalom among certain persons. But does that mean that it’s always that way?
God stated that he was well-pleased with Jesus. That’s something we’ll never be, right? We can’t bring pleasure to God. We’re human. We’re sinful creatures. Even in salvation, we don’t bring God pleasure, do we? If that’s how you feel—if that’s what you believe—then you need to hear these words.
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
In other words, the more and more the work of God is in you, and you working in concert with what God is doing in you so that you express it outwardly, the more and more you are doing what pleases God. This is both a being and doing sentence. God is working in you so that you become that which he chose you to become. And because you are becoming that inwardly, you perform that outwardly. Certainly this is all of grace, but grace takes us from being sinful creatures to being beloved children. It takes us from doing that which displeases God into that doing that which is for his good pleasure.
Remember
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Our sin was imputed to Jesus—placed on him at the cross and removed from us—and in return we have the righteousness of God imputed to us—placed upon us. Thus we become God’s righteousness and do that which is right and pleasing to him—more and more as we grow up in our faith.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we conclude this text, it is my hope that we will continue to let it marinade in our thoughts. May we ponder the power and importance of being a man, a woman, a child of prayer. Jesus was a man of prayer. Everything he did seems to have been drenched first in prayer. May we meditate on the Spirit coming down as a testimony of who Jesus is. He was the Son of God, the Messiah. He is our witness as well, testifying to our spirits that we are children of God and if children, heirs of God. May we think through the reality that God’s good pleasure was upon his beloved Son. He was not like the worthless idols Israel once had carved and cast; he was not even like the beloved Patriarchs, one of whom was called God’s friend. He was the beloved Son of God in whom he was well-pleased. But then continue to think through that by God’s good pleasure, we can become and live for God’s good pleasure.
If you’ve never experienced what it means to have God’s good pleasure in your life, today you can. That doesn’t mean that everything is suddenly going to go your way. Every Christian can attest to you that isn’t what it means at all. But what it does mean is that you become a beloved child of his. It means that he will be in you and you will be in Christ. It means that all your rebellion, sin, evil-doing is taken from you and you are forgiven and loved. This can happen for you today and I would love to tell you more.