SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/27/2020
12:54 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
“Anointing of the Spirit”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 3:16
Message of the verse: “16 And after being baptized, Jesus went up
immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the
Spirit of God descending as
a dove, and coming upon Him,”
We
have talked about John’s baptism, which is similar to what Jesus’ disciples did
when they were baptizing as seen in John 4:1-2, and that is a baptism of
repentance, cleansing, or washing, from sin.
This is different from Christian baptism which represents the believer’s
identification with Christ’s death and resurrection as can be seen in Romans
6:4; and Col. 2:12. MacArthur adds “In
both cases the significance of the act is lost if it does not involve
immersion. Sprinkling or pouring does
not fit either the symbolism or cleansing or of dying and being raised.”
It
has been many years ago that I learned the Greek word that is actually a
transliteration into the English and that word is “baptize.” This word literally means to dip an object
into water or other liquid. If you have
a donut with your morning coffee and you dip the donut into your coffee that is
what this word means.
It
was not until the Middle ages that the Christian church began to sprinkle those
being baptized, before that even in the catholic church immersion was
used. The Bible is very clear about how
one is to be baptized. We can see in our
verse for today that Jesus went up immediately from the water, meaning that He
was in the water in order to be baptized, and so He went under the water and
then came up out of the water. It is
said of John the Baptist in “Joh 3:23 John also was baptizing in Aenon near
Salim, because there was much
water there; and people
were coming and were being baptized-.”
In the desert there is not a lot of water and so John had to go where
there was “much water” in order to baptize people.
As
soon as Jesus came up out of the water we read “behold, the heavens were
opened. We only see a few places in the
Bible where the heavens were opened and this is one of them. Others can be seen in Ezekiel 1:1-19 and then
in Acts 7:56, and then we see a number of times in the book of Revelation: 4:1; 11:19; 19:11. One more time and even though we don’t see
the words “the heavens were opened” it happened for the Apostle Paul as he
recounts his experience in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4.
John
MacArthur writes “As on commentator suggests, ‘Just as the veil of the Temple
was rent in twain to symbolize the perfect access of all men to God, so here
the heavens are rent asunder to show how near God is to Jesus , and Jesus is to
God.’”
Next
Matthew talks about what John the Baptist saw “he saw the Spirit of God
descending as a dove, and coming upon Him.”
John writes in John 1:33, speaking of John the Baptist, “I 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.’”
In
John MacArthur commentary he states that this is the only instance in which the
Holy Spirit was ever so represented. I
have looked at this passage many times and one of the things that I have
learned is that the word “as” is a simile and that to means that the Spirit
came down like a dove lands which is very gentle. I am not sure that a dove was seen, and if it
was this is the only time that it happened.
Doves do not represent the Holy Spirit like some believe that they do
today.
John
MacArthur writes “Why did the Holy Spirit come upon Jesus? When He became a man, Jesus did not lose His divinity. He was still fully God in every way. In His deity He needed nothing. But in His humanity He was here beign
anointed for service and granted strength for ministry. The Spirit anointed Him for His kingly
service, as Isaiah had predicted: ‘The
Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord 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’ (Isa. 61:1). Among other things, the Spirit of God came
upon Jesus in His humanness in a special way (John 3:34) that empowered Him to
cast out demons (Matt. 12:28), to do miraculous signs and wonders (Acts 2:22),
and to preach (cf. Acts 10:38). Like
every human being, Jesus became tired and hungry and sleepy. His humanness needed strengthening, and that
needed strength was given by the Holy Spirit (cf. Matt. 4:1; Luke 4:14).”
Jesus’
anointing with the Holy Spirit was unique.
As seen above it was given to him to empower in His humanness, however
it was also given as a visible, confirming sign to John the Baptist and also to
everyone who was watching at that time.
MacArthur concludes “Jesus was indeed the Messiah; the great King who’s
coming the Lord had called John to announce and to prepare men for.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: There were no mistakes in what happened to
our Lord as He came to earth, and now as He would shortly begin His ministry
anointed by the Holy Spirit. One of the
things in my life I can learn from this is to have better planning in my life.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to be with me as I fight the
good fight every day, and to seek much joy in my study of the Word of God. To Love the Lord, and to be a humble servant
of His.
1/27/2020 1:31 PM
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