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Preceded by the forerunner ministry of John the Baptist, Jesus was baptized by John and commenced His public ministry You are free to download this article provided it remains intact without alteration. You are also free to transmit this article and quote this article provided that proper citation of authorship is included.
During His upbringing in Nazareth Jesus probably became progressively aware of His identity and the work to which He was called. Having served His apprenticeship under Joseph and fulfilled the customary expectations of a Jewish son, He was then ready to assume the responsibilities for which He had been sent by God. (22) John begins to preach - Mark 1:1; Luke 3:1,2 Mark simply indicates the commencement of his gospel-account of the "good news" of Jesus Christ by introducing the preparatory ministry of John the Baptist. Luke, being the more meticulous researcher, gives us political and religious markers by which to ascertain the historical context of what was transpiring as John began to preach in the wilderness down in the Jordan river valley. The political environment is identified beginning with the Roman Emperor, Tiberius, who was in the fifteenth year of his reign. Tiberius became co-regent with Augustus in 11 or 12 A.D., and sole emperor in 19 A.D. when Augustus died. Luke is apparently calculating from the beginning of his co-regency which would make the date when John began to preach approximately 26 or 27 A.D. A brief history of the previous three decades will assist in understanding the other historical markers than Luke provides. After Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. (requiring Jesus' birth to be prior to such), the Palestinian region was divided into three districts, to be ruled by his three sons. One of his sons, Archalaeus, was given authority over Judea, Samaria and Idumea, but he proved to be such an inefficient ruler that he had to be replaced after about ten years. In his place the Romans implemented direct rule by a Roman governor or procurator, which the Jewish people found detestable since they regarded themselves as "God's People" who should be ruled by God through a Jewish leader. At least the Herodian family had some Jewish blood in it, but now a Roman Gentile was in authority over them, which they found quite unacceptable. From 26 to 36 A.D. Pontius Pilate served as the Roman governor over Judea, Samaria and Idumea. Another of Herod's sons, known as Herod Antipas, was given authority over the northern region of Galilee and down the Jordan valley in the region of Perea. He continued to rule during the time of John and Jesus' activity, and it is this "Herod" that Jesus called an "old fox" (Luke 13:32), the same one who ordered John's execution by decapitation. He was a crafty politician who had built a new capital for himself in 22 A.D. on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, calling it Tiberias after Emperor Tiberius. Luke proceeds to inform us that the third brother, Philip, was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis farther to the northeast, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene. The religious situation is described by Luke as being during the "high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas." The Jews considered the high priest to be a life-time position, but the Roman procurators in Judea had arbitrarily changed high priests several times. Annas had served as high priest for nine years, from 6 to 15 A.D. After several appointments by the procurator, his son-in-law, Caiaphas became high priest in 18 A.D., and survived because he was willing to be a puppet to Roman authority. Annas, however, was still the power-broker in high-priestly circles, and still presided over the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:6), and was still called "high priest" (John 18:19). (23) John preaches repentance - Matt. 3:1-6; Mark 1:2-6; Luke 3:3-6 The Jews of Palestine were restless. They were increasingly convinced that God was going to intervene in their situation and makes things right. The process by which they expected this to happen varied greatly. There were apocalypticists who believed that God was going to judge with doom and destruction. The Essenes advocated and expected a non-violent restoration of theocracy. The Zealots were the activists who were convinced that "might makes right," and a large part of the population was sympathetic to their subversive resistance against the Roman authorities. Their motives were not just theological but also economic, for they were particularly irritated at the exorbitant taxation collected by unscrupulous mercenaries. The Romans regarded these resistance fighters as rebels and terrorists and sought to suppress them, but the Jewish people called them "zealots" in their zeal to restore Israel. In the midst of this anticipatory situation comes John the Baptist with a prophetic announcement and proclamation. It had been a long time since the Jewish people had seen a true prophet of God. There had been a four hundred year "dry spell" wherein God had not sent a prophet. All they could do was look back and remember and interpret what God had done in the past. Had they done so more carefully they might have seen the abundance of signposts that God had given, prefiguring what He was going to do in His Son, Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Instead they bogged down in meticulous and myopic interpretations of external applications of the law, in legalistic scrupulosity and religiosity. The rules and regulations, rites and rituals of their religion blinded them to what God was doing. The core of John's preaching was, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2). The Jews had long employed the word "heaven" as a way of avoiding using the name of Yahweh (cf. Mk. 8:11; Lk. 15:18). "Heaven" was used as an equivalent for "God." The "kingdom of heaven" and the "kingdom of God" are used as identical terms throughout the gospels and are to be regarded as synonymous. The "kingdom of heaven" is the kingdom of the One who is in heaven, not necessarily the kingdom that is in heaven or comes from heaven. God's intent for His people was a theocratic kingdom whereby He would rule as King and Lord in the lives of His people, individually and collectively. The "kingdom of God," even as typified in the Davidic kingdom, always indicated divine rule and reign, the dynamic and active divine rule of God. The religious expectations of the Jews in the first century, however, was infected by the zealotism that longed for a nationalistic, racist, militaristic Jewish kingdom. John does not seem to have sympathized or identified with that contemporary kingdom expectation, but recognized to some extent that the kingdom would be a spiritual kingdom inaugurated by the Messiah, actuating an internal, spiritual change in the subjects of the kingdom. It was to be a kingdom that was ontologically connected to the person and work of the King, Christ Jesus. Repentance was required of all people, John declared. Every person needed "a change of mind that leads to a change of action and conduct," a conversion of their orientation in life. Earlier prophets in the old covenant had demanded that the nation of Israel as a whole needed to repent and change their ways, but John was calling on all individuals to repent, confess their sins, and avoid the judgment of God which was to come. Many of the haughty, self-righteous, Pharisaical Jews were not convinced that they needed such an individual repentance and confession of sin. Pagan Gentile foreigners needed such a "baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mk. 1:4; Lk. 3:3), but not them, the "people of God." How humiliating to individually and publicly submit to baptism, confessing and repenting of sin. To expect such was a confrontation of their religion. Theologically we might ask whether John was advocating that a decision to confess sins, repent, and be baptized in water could result in forgiveness of sins before God. Such does not appear to be what he was offering. He was "preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mk. 1:4). The preposition "for" is translated from the Greek word eis, meaning "unto" or "towards" the forgiveness of sins, and does not necessarily mean "for the effecting of" the forgiveness of sins. The baptism indicated the person was willing to confess their sins and repent, with a desire for the forgiveness of their sins. The candidate willing submitted to be overwhelmed in water in identification with the repudiation of sin and the need for a Messiah/Savior, identifying in prospect with what God was going to do in His Son, whose work would make forgiveness of sins available to all men. All four of the writers of the gospel-records explain that John the Baptist was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 40, as he, himself, apparently declared. Metaphorical language is employed as John is likened to the "heralds" or "forerunners" who would go before the Roman emperor when he was coming to visit a region, telling the people to repair the roads, fill up the ruts, smooth out the rough places and the bumps in preparation for the coming king. In like manner, John the Baptist serves as the "herald" or "forerunner" of the divine King, Jesus. Luke, writing the gospel of universal application, cites the extended passage from Isaiah which includes the statement that "all flesh shall see the salvation of God" (Luke 3:6; Isa. 40:5) in the One whom John the Baptist was heralding. Such a declaration confronted the contemporary exclusivism of Jewish religion. There was no doubt that the people who saw and heard John regarded him as a prophet from God. He spoke like a prophet, warning of divine judgment and calling people to repentance. In appearance and style he was like the prophet Elijah, "a hairy man with a leather girdle bound about his loins" (II Kings 1:8). He survived by eating locusts and honey collected from the rocks in the desert country. His appearance and preaching became quite a phenomenon in Palestine at the end of the third decade of the first century . He was attracting great crowds who were pouring out in droves from Jerusalem and Judea to hear this austere desert preacher. Some thought he might be the Messiah. The impact of his ministry is recognized by the fact that followers of John still existed a quarter century later in Asia (Acts 19:1-7). (24) John denounces religionists - Matt. 3:7-10; Luke 3:7-14 When John saw the religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, coming for baptism, he unleashed a severe denunciation about their being a "brood of vipers," the offspring of snakes! John was the son of a priest, and may have seen firsthand the hypocrisy and corruption of the religious parties of his day. He knew the sinister and ulterior motives of these religious leaders; they were not coming to repent of their sins. John portrays them as low-down, poisonous snakes, just as Jesus does later (Matt. 12:34; 23:33), and inherent in that designation is the Jewish understanding of the serpent identified with Satan (Gen. 3:1; Rev. 12:9; 20:2), with whom Jesus identifies the activities of such religious leaders (John 8:44). John goes on to ask these religious leaders, "Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Matt. 3:7). "Are you just trying to save your own skins, and get off the hook?" The wrath of God is coming, John asserts; the opposition of God against all evil. In fact, "the axe is already laid at the root of the trees" (Matt. 3:10; Lk. 3:9) of their unproductive and unfruitful religious tenets and practices. John could see that the judgment of God was going to fall upon the religion of Judaism and Israel, and their roots were already exposed for the felling blow. Such a declaration of coming judgment is not referring to a future and final judgment, but to the judgment of God on all evil and religion as the new covenant kingdom arrives in Jesus Christ. Knowing the propensity of the Jews to fall back on patriarchal promises, John disallows and denies that the Jewish religionists can legitimately call Abraham their father and thus escape what God is going to do. "Nothing will happen to us; God will protect us because we are children of Abraham," was the reasoning of the Jews. They thought that "eternal security" was in the claiming of divine promises, predestined election, and racial privilege, failing to recognize that it is only in the person of Jesus Christ. John is taking a giant swing at the very root of Jewish religion. The Jews thought they were "children of Abraham" based on the divine selection of racial superiority and national privilege. "God is able to make children of Abraham out of these stones," John declared. It was beyond the imagination of the Jews that God would take stony-hearted Gentiles and make them "children of Abraham" in the new covenant kingdom of Jesus Christ. By the receptivity of faith unto spiritual union with Jesus Christ, the Christian becomes a spiritual "child of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7,26,29; Rom. 4:13,16; 9:7,8), part of the true "Israel" (Rom. 9:6; Gal. 6:16), the "chosen race, a holy nation, the people of God" (I Peter 2:9,10). Such was unfathomable to the Jewish religionist, and remains so to much religious interpretation to this day. Jewish race, blood and heredity avails nothing in God's kingdom through His Son, Jesus Christ. The multitudes asked John, "What shall we do?" (Luke 3:10), since they were seemingly convicted of their need to respond (cf. Acts 2:37; 16:30). John tells them to share their clothing and food with those in need. If you are a tax-collector do not extort more money than is due. If you are a soldier do not intimidate people, take kickbacks, make false accusations, or complain about your wages. In other words, bring forth behavioral fruit evidencing your repentance. Was John's ministry just a moral reform movement of behavior modification? All John could offer them was an opportunity to respond to their need of repentance from sinful behavior, and to identify with the Messiah who would take away the consequences of their sin in His death. The Jewish historian, Josephus, writes of John the Baptist:
(25) The Coming One will baptize and judge - Matt. 3:11,12; Mark 1:7,8; Luke 3:15-18 Some of the listeners thought that John might be the Messiah, and the Jewish leaders were afraid that he might be such also. John forestalls such speculation by explaining that One mightier than he was coming, for whom he was but an unworthy forerunner or herald. The King is yet to come. John explains that his water baptism is but a precursor which prefigures the spiritual realities conveyed in Jesus' activity of baptizing. "I baptize in water, but the One coming after me will baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire." The activity of the Messiah will cause you to be overwhelmed either by the Holy Spirit or by the fire of divine judgment. Jesus' redemptive action creates an either/or of "eternal life" or "eternal punishment" (Matt. 25:46). The dichotomy of this overwhelming action is based on belief or unbelief, faithful receptivity or rejection, of Jesus Christ. The separating of mankind by receptivity or rejection of Jesus Christ is then illustrated by the picture of the "threshing-floor." Jesus will come with a winnowing fork and "gather the wheat into His barn" (salvation), but "He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (judgment). The issue in Jesus Christ is eternal life or death. (26) Jesus is baptized by John - Matt. 3:13-17; Mk. 1:9-11; Lk. 3:21-23 That Jesus chose to be baptized by John indicates a deliberate decision to align Himself with what John was doing and preaching. John took a radical stand in confronting the religion of his day, exposing the immorality and illegitimacy of such. Everything he said and did was the antithesis of the prevailing religion. Jesus identified with John in his repudiation and confrontation of all religion. Jesus concurred with John's message of the impending judgment of God upon sin and the Jewish religion. In accord with John, Jesus called for an individual, rather than national, response of repentance. Jesus aligned Himself with John in affirming that the Jewish race and religion did not count for anything spiritual before God, and that there was going to be a new, spiritual Israel. Goppelt remarks that
Jesus presented Himself to be baptized by John in the midst of the crowds who were doing so. He had no sins to confess or repent of, and was in Himself the fulfillment of the overwhelming identification they were making in such water baptism. Recognizing the superiority of Jesus over himself, John tried to prevent Jesus from being baptized. Jesus told John to permit His submission to John's baptism to "fulfill all righteousness." This statement has long been pondered by Christian interpreters. Was this a prefiguring of Jesus' identification and solidarity with sinful mankind? Was this a pictorial of His coming death and resurrection necessitated "to fulfill the justice of God?" Later Jesus referred to having an overwhelming "baptism to be baptized with" (Mk 10:38; Lk 12:50), so was the water baptism of John a prefiguring of the overwhelming of His substitutionary death which "fulfilled all righteousness?" As the "Righteous One" (I John 2:1), the fulfillment of all righteousness in Himself, Jesus seems to have been identifying Himself as the One with whom all the people had identified in John's baptism. God's confirmation of what Jesus and John were doing came in the form of a dove from the heavens. It served as a confirmation to John that Jesus was indeed the Messiah to whom he had been pointing and preparing the way. It served as a confirmation to Jesus that the Holy Spirit was present for the continuing revelation of Himself. Messianic prophecies of God's putting His Spirit upon His Servant (Isa. 42:1; 61:1) seem to have been fulfilled in this action. The voice of God declared, "This is My beloved Son (Ps. 2:7), in Whom I am well-pleased." God is well-pleased only when His own Being and character are actively expressed, and "without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb. 11:6). Luke gives us the additional detail that
Jesus was "about thirty years of age" (Lk. 3:23) when
He began His ministry. Born while Herod the Great was still living,
probably 4-6 B.C., Jesus must have been baptized by John the
Baptist between 26 and 28 A.D. (27) Temptation of Jesus in the wilderness - Matt. 4:1-11; Mk. 1:12,13; Lk. 4:1-13. Jesus was "led up by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil." It was God's intent that Jesus should be thus tested and tempted. Though God does not tempt anyone with evil intent (James 1:13), He does allow us to be put to the test. God tested Abraham (Gen. 22:1; Heb. 11:17) to see if he were willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac. In the midst of the same circumstance God tests a person to examine and prove whether that person will rely upon Him, and Satan tempts that person soliciting reliance upon His evil energizing. Perfectionistic religion thwarts such when it suggests that "if you are being tempted, you can be sure that you are not right with God." What was the purpose of God allowing or orchestrating Jesus' temptation? Was it so that Jesus could "sympathize with our weaknesses" (Heb. 4:15) and "come to the aid of those who are tempted" (Heb. 2:18)? Was it a psychological struggle to test Jesus' commitment and dedication? Religionists have suggested that Jesus had to figure out God's "plan" for His ministry, adopt a "philosophy of ministry" by setting objectives and a plan of operation, determine how He was going to organize His "committee" and employ "church growth" techniques. As God had just confirmed that Jesus was His Son and thus the Messiah, Jesus was probably led into the wilderness to come to terms with His identity and the implications thereof, and to test His understanding of the function of the God-man by being tempted by the devil to function outside of the human receptivity of faith. Could Jesus have yielded to the temptation of the devil? Could He have sinned? Those who emphasize the deity of Jesus posit the doctrine of His impeccability, noting that "God cannot be tempted by evil" (James 1:13). Though Jesus was God, and never less than God, He was functioning as a man having "emptied Himself" (Phil. 2:7) of the prerogative of independent and inherent divine function. It was not as God, but as a man, that Jesus was tempted. W. Ian Thomas explains,
The question still remains whether Jesus was doubly tempted, not only with human appetites and ambitions "in all things as we are" (Heb. 4:15), but also tempted to revert to His inherent divinity in order to resolve the situation, thus opting out of the human receptivity of faith. It does appear that His was a double-edged temptation. Though the sequence of the temptations differs in Matthew's and Luke's account, we shall consider them in the sequence that Matthew presents them: The first temptation during the forty days in the wilderness was to turn the stones into bread in order to satisfy his physical hunger. Surely this was a temptation to revert to the supernatural power of His inherent divinity and to make a display of such miraculous power for the sake of personal gratification of human appetites, rather than trusting God for His providential care and provision. It was a temptation to self-serving divine power, which is a contradiction of terms or an oxymoron. Jesus' faithfully receptive response is to quote Deuteronomy 8:3, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God," indicating that He chooses to rely on God for not only His physical needs, but for every expression that God wants to make in the man. The second temptation, according to Matthew, was Satan's taking Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, whether physically, by visual sighting or mental imagery we do not know. The devil suggests that He could throw Himself down from the pinnacle for Scripture states that "He will give His angels charge over You; on their hands they will bear You up, lest You strike Your foot against a stone" (Ps. 91:11,12). The devil can quote Scripture with a literalistic interpretation, as he so often does within religion. The temptation seems to have been to engage in sensationalism that would draw crowds of incredulous observers producing immediate popularity and satisfying the personal aspiration of success by a human agenda, without waiting on God to work in accord with His character and success standards. The end does not justify the means, for God's end can only be achieved by His means. In response to the temptation to presume on God's power to achieve success, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God," indicating that presuming on God is not trusting in God. The third temptation was to seek quick-success and high-handed power by selling out to personal reputation and becoming a subordinate king, instead of submitting to God in the painful way of suffering via the cross. External success instead of internal transformation by spiritual exchange is to play into the hands of Satan. Jesus tells the devil to "Get lost," and quotes Deuteronomy 6:13 saying, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only." Religion, the devil's handmaid, offers the same types of temptation today. The temptation to seek supernatural power instead of God's providential care. The temptation to seek sensational popularity presuming on God's power for success. The temptation to seek broad external success instead of internal transformation which involves pain and suffering. By Christ's intercessory sufficiency we can turn away from temptation as He did. (28) John explains his role - John 1:19-28. Having been publicly criticized by John, the religionists from Jerusalem send a delegatory deputation to ask John, "Who are you?" Religion does not know how to identify a prophet, much less a Messiah, for they have no spiritual understanding and discernment. They were probably hoping to entrap John into claiming to be the Messiah, so they could set about to discredit him. John disengages their disingenuous ways by immediately denying that he is the Messiah. Since the Jews expected that Elijah would return as a herald of the Messiah in accord with the prophecy of Malachi, "I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord" (Mal. 4:5), these religious representative inquire whether he is Elijah. John did not apparently consider himself as such and denies that he is the return of Elijah, but later Jesus seems to indicate that he was such (Matt. 11:14; 17:12; Mk. 9:11). Remembering that Moses said that the Lord would raise up a prophet like him (Deut. 18:15), they ask if John is that prophet. John replied, "No." John simply identified himself with the prophecy of Isaiah, as "a voice crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord" (Isa. 40:3); just a road-straightener and a path-leveler for the King. The delegation then asks, "Why, then, are you baptizing?" "If you do not claim to have prophetic and religious authority, what gives you the credentialed right to presume to baptize?" The Jewish religion baptized proselytes as an initiation rite into associate membership in Judaism, and John did not have the right to do so. Not only that, John was calling all persons to be baptized, even Jews and Pharisees who were not regarded to be "unclean" or "sinful." John explains that he baptizes in water in order to allow people to identify with the Coming One, the Messiah, whose sandal he is unworthy to untie, and who is presently in their midst living historically at that time in Palestine. (29) John introduces Jesus - John 1:29-34 The next day Jesus approached, and John declared to those present, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." John apparently recognized Jesus as the "suffering servant" of Isaiah 53, who would be "led like a lamb to slaughter" (Isa. 53:7), the sacrificial lamb who would take the collective sin of mankind upon Himself and be victorious over all forms of religion (Rev. 17:14). John also identifies Jesus as a man superior to himself and pre-existent to himself. "After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me" (John 1:30). His introduction and manifestation was my purpose for coming and baptizing, John said. God had told John that "He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit," and John had observed such and was convinced that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah. (30) Jesus calls the first disciples - John 1:35-51. Two of John's disciples, Andrew and an unnamed disciple (probably John, the author of this document, who foregoes mention of his own name throughout the writing), decide to follow the One that John the Baptist was pointing to. Andrew, in turn, found his brother, Simon, who Jesus renamed Cephas, or Peter, meaning "rock," indicating his destiny and the role he would play in the early church. The next day they went to Galilee and found Philip, who led them to Nathanael, saying, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph." Philip was convinced that everything in the entirety of the old covenant literature pointed to Jesus as Messiah, as indeed it does. Nathanael was not yet convinced, and responded with a common snide remark of regional scorn, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Jesus told Nathanael that He saw him under the fig tree before he ever came, and that was enough for Nathanael to call Him "Son of God" and "King of Israel." Jesus told Nathanael that he would see "greater things than these; you will see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." This is figurative and metaphorical language that represents the interactive communion between heaven and earth as Jesus serves as the Mediator between God and man (I Tim. 2:5). Some think there may be a veiled reference to Jacob's ladder scene (Gen. 28:12), representing the assurance of God's activity. This is also the first occasion of Jesus using the self-designation of the "Son of Man" whereby Jesus is identified with humanity, but also with the prophecy of Daniel which states that "One like a Son of Man is coming, that all men might serve Him in an everlasting kingdom" (Dan. 7:13,14). (31) The miracle of turning water into wine - John 2:1-11 In Cana of Galilee, about four miles northeast of Nazareth, Jesus and His disciples (about six of them) are invited to a wedding, probably beginning on a Wednesday, since this was the custom. In the midst of the wedding celebration which lasted for several days, they ran out of wine, whether by negligence of poor planning, the poverty of the host family, or the additional guests we are not told. Jesus supernaturally make wine out of water. In this, His first miracle, He confronts and exposes Jewish religion. He took the old clay water-pots of legalistic cleansing and purification in the Jewish religion, and puts into them the celebratory "bubbly" wine that represents the dynamic, living and active life of God in Himself. The symbolism is that the new covenant wine of His own life, full of joy and blessing, replaces the old dirty water of the purification vats of religion. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels" (II Cor. 4:7), writes Paul. The wine provided is superior to that which was before, and is provided in abundance (John 10:10). John calls this "the beginning of Jesus' signs," or actions which signify spiritual realities. Some religious interpretations try to explain that this was not real wine, but just diluted grape juice, based on their legalistic assumptions about abstinence and teetotalism. Others would fault Jesus for engaging in social merry-making and levity, condescending to engage in mirth. Religious legalism and discontent keep many from enjoying the joy of the Lord. (32) Jesus goes to Capernaum - John 2:12 Along with His mother, brothers and disciples, Jesus goes to Capernaum, situated on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. There is no reason to deny that the "brothers" who accompanied Him were the half-brothers of Jesus, children of the union of Joseph and Mary after Jesus was born. Roman religion has denied such based on their baseless accretion of the doctrine of Mary's "perpetual virginity." Capernaum might have been like a tropical resort, where they stayed for a few days, for the Sea of Galilee was below sea-level and usually warm and balmy. It was located on the main road between Damascus and Jerusalem, and would be a convenient place to join the "caravan" that would be headed to Jerusalem for the coming Jewish Passover. (33) Cleansing the temple in Jerusalem - John 2:13-22 Jesus engages in a direct confrontation with the Judaic religion in the early part of His ministry, by challenging the corrupt religious practices in the temple. He apparently did so near the conclusion of His ministry also (Matt. 21:12; Mk. 11:15-17; Lk. 19:45). Some have seen in these occurrences a fulfillment of Malachi 3:1-4 where the prophet indicates that "the Lord will come to His temple, the messenger of the covenant. Who can endure the day of His coming? He is like a refiner's fire and fullers' soap. He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them..so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness." Jesus certainly came as a refiner and a purifier of the religious practices He observed in the temple in Jerusalem. Under the management of Annas, the de facto high priest, there was an elaborate system of graft, kick-backs, extortion and economic corruption. The priests were skimming from the exorbitant profits of the money-changers and animal merchants. These priests served Mammon rather than God. They engaged in economic exploitation of the people's religious devotion and piety. The temple courts served as a bizarre bazaar that was an abomination of the place that represented the presence and worship of God. Jesus wove together a whip out of some rope, and drove out the animals and the money-changers. Many of the Jewish population would probably have applauded Jesus as a champion of justice, for they knew the whole system was corrupt and hated the situation, but not until 67 A.D. did popular indignation force the end to such. Jesus' disciples thought of Psalm 69:9 where David wrote, "Zeal for Thy house will consume me," and thought that it certainly applied to Jesus. The Jewish leaders, knowing their guilt, hypocritically ask Jesus for some miraculous attestation of His authority to clean house like this. "Prove that you are the Messiah by performing a miracle," they say. "Miracles on demand will document God," is a typical religious thesis. That because their God is no bigger than magical stunts! Religion is always concerned with authority structures and supernatural attestation, desiring sensational demonstrations rather than waiting for God to work out His activity in His way. Jesus explained that He could attest to His authority to thus refine and purify. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," He said. The Jewish religionists, in their literalistic obtuseness and always concerned with physicality rather than spiritual things, could not figure out how their magnificent Herodian temple, which required forty-six years to construct, could be raised up from destruction in just three days. But they knew that temple desecration was a capital offense, and they later would use these very words as an accusation of "intent to destroy" the temple at Jesus' trial, when they misquoted Jesus' words and argued that Jesus said, "I will destroy" (Mk. 14:58), or "I am able to destroy" (Matt. 26:61) this temple, charging Him with seditious, conspiratorial "intent to destroy." John explains that Jesus was speaking figuratively and metaphorically of the temple of His body, the holy place of the Holy One, which after three days in death would be raised up in resurrection life. The religious leaders wanted supernatural attestation of His authority, and such was forthcoming in God's due time in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, when He "was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom. 1:4). Eschewing the sensational supernaturalism that religion desires, and the inordinate physicality of religion, Jesus knew the spiritual end for which He came. Religion seems to be inevitably corrupt, greedy, full of political graft and self-aggrandizement, unconcerned with the good of the people or the worship of God, and more concerned with physical structures. The dynamic of Jesus' life and character will always seek to wipe such out! Henceforth, Jesus and His disciples were persona non gratia to the religious authorities in Jerusalem. They were on the "suspect" list as a roving band of possible revolutionaries who could upset the political and religious status quo, and were on the verge of being "wanted men," fugitives on the run. (34) Nicodemus needs new birth - John 2:23 3:21. Jesus went on to perform additional "signs" in Jerusalem (not to prove to the priests who He was, but to show God at work), and many believed that He was the Messiah because they saw something supernatural. But Jesus knew their hearts and their motives, and knew that they could not yet be receptive in faith to the redemptive activity of God whereby His very presence could come into them by His Spirit. Theirs was a reactive impulse, and emotional high. Religion traffics in such responses and regards them as legitimate faith! "If it is supernatural, it must be of God," they reason. Such is not the case, for such supernaturalism may be a satanic exhibition of religion. Belief based on seeing supernatural phenomena is precarious and usually spurious, for it is too easy for men to be duped and deceived by magical manipulations. When Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, Jesus explained that each individual needs a spiritual regeneration, not just an awe of God's power or a sympathy with God's plan; not just a mental recognition, emotional reaction or volitional commitment. Nicodemus came as an individual, not as an envoy of religious leadership. It is likely that his real interest, despite his opening pleasantries and accolades, was to ascertain whether Jesus was going to establish the Messianic kingdom, and if so when and in what manner. Jesus addresses the subject of the "kingdom of God" and the basis for participation in such. Nicodemus probably shared the contemporary expectation of Jewish religion for a restoration of God's reign, but the parameters in which Nicodemus understood and expected the "kingdom" were antithetical to that which Jesus explains. Nicodemus thought of the kingdom in terms of a physical and visible realm, whereas Jesus refers to the kingdom in terms of the spiritual and invisible reign of God. Nicodemus thought of the kingdom in terms of "establishing" an entity, whereas Jesus refers to the kingdom in terms of "entering" into spiritual reality. Jesus' perspective of the "kingdom" is a confrontation to all religious concepts of the "kingdom" involving physicality, geographical location and place, a material capital, throne, temple and tangible sacrifices, organizational structure, and the extent and duration of space/time measurement. The kingdom of God brought into being in Jesus Christ has nothing to do with such, contrary to all religious thinking down through the centuries. Jesus tells Nicodemus that the spiritual
kingdom requires a spiritual birth in order to enter into the
participation thereof. Nicodemus naturally reverts to physical
thinking of human obstetrics and returning into his mother's
womb. Like a typical religionist, he thinks in literalistic concepts,
failing to understand spiritual metaphors of illustrative language.
Jesus contrasts physical birth and spiritual birth, being born
of the flesh and being born of the Spirit. Religious interpretations
which take the reference to being "born of water" as
a reference to the rite of water baptism are employing the same
type of physical and material understanding evidenced in Nicodemus,
and usually view such a baptismal rite as initiation into their
"kingdom" of ecclesiastical institution and organization.
In similarity to Moses' lifting up of the bronze serpent (Numb. 21:9) after God's judgment of fiery serpents, to which men could look in repentance of their sin, so Jesus is the One all men must look to for repentance and genuine forgiveness of sins. The spiritual realities of eternal life and participation in the kingdom are made available when Jesus is "lifted up" on the cross, raised in resurrection and in ascension to the spiritual throne of God's spiritual kingdom. Verses 16 to 21 seem to be John's synopsis
of Jesus' discourse with Nicodemus. God's grace in His Son, Jesus
Christ, received by personal faith, is the basis of eternal life
participation in the spiritual kingdom. Jesus did not come to
do a bang-up job of judgment by physical destruction, but that
the world of mankind might be made safe spiritually from spiritual
usurpation and dysfunction. The judgment of God comes in the
failure of an individual to receive Jesus Christ. The religion
of Jesus' day engaged in evil, loved the darkness, did not want
their wicked deeds exposed, and hated the light of God in Jesus
Christ. Religion continues to do so for their deeds are derived
from the diabolic source, whereas those who come to Jesus as
their light and life, find their deeds being manifested as having
been wrought in God. (35) John explains Jesus to his disciples - John 3:22-36 Jesus took His disciples out of Jerusalem into the surrounding area of Judea, where John the Baptist was also preaching and baptizing. Here were two critics of religion in the same general location. Some of John's disciples seem to have been jealous that Jesus was drawing crowds away from John. John humbly and self-effacingly explains to them that if this is what God is doing, so be it. John recognizes that he is not the Messiah, but merely a forerunner, a friend of the bridegroom who rejoices at the joy of the bridegroom. The supremacy of the ministry of the Messiah is God's will, John points out. "He must increase; I must decrease." Again, verses 31-36 seem to be the synopsis that John, the writer of the gospel-record, makes of the words of John the Baptist. Jesus comes from heaven and bears witness of God by investing and laying down His life. He speaks the words of God and gives the Spirit without measure. This is contrasted to religion which is always calculating measured activities of the Holy Spirit, failing to understand that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ and comes to us unmeasured, undivided, and not in part of percentage. The Christian is "complete in Christ" (Col. 2:10), having received all things in Christ (I Cor. 3:20-23). By the receptivity of faith we come into spiritual union with the Spirit of Christ, participating in His eternal life and kingdom. "The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand" (John 3:35), implying that all of God's activity is Christocentric and Christo-ontologically dynamic, a reality which most of "Christian religion" fails to understand. (36) Jesus goes to Galilee - Matt. 4:12; Mk. 1:14; Lk. 3:19,20; Jn. 4:1-4 "Divide and conquer" is one of religion's methodologies, and the Jewish religionists seem to have employed it successfully in conspiring to create dissension between Jesus and His followers and John the Baptist and his followers. That is not the reason Jesus chose to move on into Galilee however. John the Baptist, who always called sin "sin," had denounced the sin of Herod Antipas for having put away his wife, the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia, and taken the daughter of his half-brother, Aristobulus, who was already the wife of his other half-brother, Philip, to be his own wife. Her name was Herodias, and she was furious with these revelations of incest and adultery, so she conspired to have John arrested and imprisoned in the dungeon of Machaerus, east of the Dead Sea. Jesus decided to go north through Samaria and into Galilee. (37) The woman at the well in Samaria - John 4:5-42 The region of Samaria was located between Judea and Galilee. The Samaritan people were regarded as half-breeds, having inter-married with Gentiles in the seventh and eighth centuries B.C. when the northern kingdom was carried into exile. Within this region was the well originally dug by Jacob (Gen. 33:18,19; 48:22), about a mile south of the city of Sychar, and close to Mt. Gerizim, the mount on which the Samaritans had built their temple about 400 B.C., having been ostracized by the Jews from the temple in Jerusalem. That temple was destroyed by John Hyrcanus in the second century B.C., and was probably in ruins on the top of the hill when Jesus came through. In His confrontation of religion, Jesus repeatedly broke the rules of religious tradition. In this case He conversed with a woman of another race which was regarded as "unclean" by the Jewish religion. Jesus was not concerned with religious traditions, approval or prestige. He was concerned about people, regardless of race, sex, economic status, marital status, etc. This woman was immorally sinful, despised by those around her as an outcast, and definitely "lowly" in the social scale. Jesus came for such as her. He came to bring all races, nations and genders into one new humanity in Himself. Religion traditionally engages in ethnic separation and racial segregation. Case in point: the most racially segregated time in the United States is on Sunday morning when the most people are participating in their religion. When Jesus spoke of "living water" (cf. Jere. 2:13; Zech. 14:8), the Samaritan woman could not understand that He was referring to spiritual realities within Himself. Her religious background of veneration of Jacob, caused her to doubt that Jesus could be greater than Jacob at whose well they stood. The spiritual water of life in Jesus Christ is far superior to the physical water provided by the patriarch, Jacob, in the old covenant religion. Jesus asked her to call her husband to the well, perhaps for the sake of propriety, and she honestly said that she did not have a husband. The Spirit of God apparently revealed to Jesus that she had five previous husbands and was living with a man who was not her husband. When Jesus noted such, she perceived that He was a prophet and tried to turn the conversation into a theological discussion. It is always easier to discuss theology than reality. Religion has long argued about places of worship, styles of worship, orders of worship, etc. Jesus said, "God is Spirit, worship Him in spirit and in truth," which is to say, "You can only worship God through Me." As the "living water" of "eternal life" in the spiritual kingdom, Jesus is intrinsic to all true worship, for such must be Christocentric worship. Such is a present reality in Jesus Christ. The Samaritan woman mentions her expectation of the coming Messiah, and Jesus responds, "I am He." She runs to tell the town-folk in Sychar, who return with her to the well and subsequently invite Jesus and His disciples to stay with them, and during such time many believed that Jesus was the Messiah. Though it was yet four months until the physical harvest, Jesus saw the fields ripe for spiritual harvest. (38) Jesus returns to Galilee - John 4:43-45. Continuing on to His home region of Galilee, Jesus was received as a favor-son, for the Galilleans had heard of what He had done in Jerusalem when He cleansed the temple of the merchandisers. His reputation had preceded Him, but Jesus knew the popularity would not last long. 1 Josephus,
Flavius, The Works of Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews.
Book XVIII, Chpt. V. Philadelphia: David McKay, Publisher. n.d.
pg. 552.
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