A verse by verse commentary on Luke chapter 3 dealing with John the Baptist preparing the way, and then the baptism of Jesus. Then the Genealogy of Jesus.

1. LUKE 3 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
John the Baptist Prepares the Way
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius
Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of
Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother
Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and
Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—
BARNES, "Now in the fifteenth year - This was the “thirteenth” year of his
being sole emperor. He was “two” years joint emperor with Augustus, and Luke
reckons from the time when he was admitted to share the empire with Augustus
Caesar. See Lardner’s “Credibility,” vol. i.
Tiberius Caesar - Tiberius succeeded Augustus in the empire, and began his
“sole” reign Aug. 19th, 14 a.d. He was a most infamous character - a scourge to the
Roman people. He reigned 23 years, and was succeeded by “Caius Caligula,” whom
he appointed his successor on account of his notorious wickedness, and that he
might be, as he expressed it, a “serpent” to the Romans.
Pontius Pilate - Herod the Great left his kingdom to three sons. See the notes at
Mat_2:22. To “Archelaus” he left “Judea.” Archelaus reigned “nine” years, when, on
account of his crimes, he was banished into Vienne, and Judea was made a Roman
province, and placed entirely under Roman governors or “procurators,” and became
completely tributary to Rome. “Pontius Pilate” was the “fifth” governor that had been
sent, and of course had been in Judea but a short time. (See the chronological table.)
Herod being tetrarch of Galilee - This was “Herod Antipas” son of Herod the
Great, to whom Galilee had been left as his part of his father’s kingdom. The word
“tetrarch” properly denotes one who presides over a “fourth part” of a country or
province; but it also came to be a general title, denoting one who reigned over any
part - a third, a half, etc. In this case Herod had a “third” of the dominions of his
father, but he was called tetrarch. It, was this Herod who imprisoned John the
Baptist, and to whom our Saviour, when arraigned, was sent by Pilate.
And his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea - “Iturea” was so called from
“Jetur,” one of the sons of Ishmael, Gen_25:15; 1Ch_1:31. It was situated on the east
side of the Jordan, and was taken from the descendants of Jetur by the tribes of
Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, 1Ch_5:19.
Region of Trachonitis - This region was also on the east of the Jordan, and
extended northward to the district of Damascus and eastward to the deserts of
1

2. Arabia. It was bounded on the west by Gaulonitis and south by the city of Bostra.
Philip had obtained this region from the Romans on condition that he would
extirpate the robbers.
Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene - Abilene was so called from “Abila,” its chief
city. It was situated in Syria, northwest of Damascus and southeast of Mount
Lebanon, and was adjacent to Galilee.
CLARKE, "Fifteenth year - This was the fifteenth of his principality and
thirteenth of his monarchy: for he was two years joint emperor, previously to the
death of Augustus.
Tiberius Caesar - This emperor succeeded Augustus, in whose reign Christ was
born. He began his reign August 19, a.d. 14, reigned twenty-three years, and died
March 16, a.d. 37, aged seventy eight years. He was a most infamous character.
During the latter part of his reign especially, he did all the mischief he possibly could;
and that his tyranny might not end with his life, he chose Caius Caligula for his
successor, merely on account of his bad qualities; and of whom he was accustomed to
say, This young prince will be a Serpent to the Roman people, and a Phaethon to the
rest of mankind.
Herod - This was Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great who murdered the
innocents. It was the same Herod who beheaded John Baptist, and to whom our
Lord was sent by Pilate. See the account of the Herod family in the notes on Mat_2:1
(note).
Iturea and Trachonitis - Two provinces of Syria, on the confines of Judea.
Abilene - Another province of Syria, which had its name from Abila, its chief city.
These estates were left to Herod Antipas and his brother Philip by the will of their
father, Herod the Great; and were confirmed to them by the decree of Augustus.
That Philip was tetrarch of Trachonitis, in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, we are
assured by Josephus, who says that Philip the brother of Herod died in the twentieth
year of Tiberius, after he had governed Trachonitis, Batanea, and Gaulonitis thirty-
seven years. Antiq. b. xviii. c. 5, s. 6. And Herod continued tetrarch of Galilee till he
was removed by Caligula, the successor of Tiberius. Antiq. b. xviii. c. 8, s. 2.
That Lysanius was tetrarch of Abilene is also evident from Josephus. He continued
in this government till the Emperor Claudius took it from him, a.d. 42, and made a
present of it to Agrippa. See Antiq. b. xix. c. 5, s. 1.
Tetrarch signifies the ruler of the fourth part of a country. See the note on Mat_
14:1.
GILL, "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,....
Emperor of Rome, and the third of the Caesars; Julius was the first, and Augustus
the second, in whose time Christ was born, and this Tiberius the third; he was the
son of Livia, the wife of Augustus, but not by him; but was adopted by him, into the
empire: his name was Claudius Tiberius Nero, and for his intemperance was called,
Caldius Biberius Mero; the whole of his reign was upwards of twenty two years, for
he died in the twenty third year of his reign (g); and in the fifteenth of it, John began
to preach, Christ was baptized, and began to preach also; so that this year may be
truly called, "the acceptable year of the Lord".
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea; under the Emperor Tiberius, in whose
2

3. reign the Jewish chronologer (h) places him, and the historian (i) also, and make
mention of him as sent by him to Jerusalem: he was not the first governor of Judea
for the Romans; there were before him Coponius, Marcus Ambivius, Annins Rufus,
and Valerius Gratus:
and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee; this was Herod Antipas, the son of Herod
the great, and brother of Archelaus; the above chronologer (k) calls him also a
tetrarch, and places him under Tiberius Caesar: he is sometimes called a king, and so
he is by the Ethiopic version here called "king of Galilee"; and in the Arabic version,
"prince over the fourth part of Galilee"; besides Galilee, he had also Peraea, or the
country beyond Jordan, as Josephus (l) says, and which seems here to be included in
Galilee; See Gill on Mat_14:1.
And his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea, and of the region of
Trachonitis: Pliny (m) makes mention of the nation of the Itureans, as belonging to
Coele Syria; perhaps Iturea is the same with Batanea, or Auranitis, or both; since
these with Trachon, the same with Trachonitis here, are allotted to Philip by
Josephus (n): it seems to take its name from Jetur, one of the sons of Ishmael, Gen_
25:15 Trachonitis is mentioned by Pliny (o), as near to Decapolis, and as a region and
tetrarchy, as here: Ptolemy (p) speaks of the Trachonite Arabians, on the east of
Batanea, or Bashan: the region of Trachona, or Trachonitis, with the Targumists (q),
answers to the country of Argob. This Philip, who as before by Josephus, so by
Egesippus (r), is said, in agreement with Luke, to be tetrarch of Trachonitis, was
brother to Herod Antipas, by the father's, but not by the mother's side. Philip was
born of Cleopatra, of Jerusalem, and Herod of Malthace, a Samaritan (s): he died in
the twentieth year of Tiberius (t), five years after this:
and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene: mention is made of Abila by Pliny (u), as
in Coele Syria, from whence this tetrarchy might have its name; and by Ptolemy (w),
it is called Abila of Lysanius, from this, or some other governor of it, of that name;
and the phrase, "from Abilene to Jerusalem", is to be met with in the Talmud (x),
which doubtless designs this same place: who this Lysanias was, is not certain; he
was not the son of Herod the great, as Eusebius suggests (y), nor that Lysanias, the
son of Ptolemy Minnaeus, whom Josephus (z) speaks of, though very probably he
might be a descendant of his: however, when Tiberius Caesar reigned at Rome, and
Pontius Pilate governed in Judea, and Herod Antipas in Galilee, and Philip his
brother in Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias in Abilene, John the Baptist began to
preach and baptize; to fix the area of whose ministry and baptism, all this is said.
HENRY, "John's baptism introducing a new dispensation, it was requisite that we
should have a particular account of it. Glorious things were said of John, what a
distinguished favourite of Heaven he should be, and what a great blessing to this
earth (Luk_1:15, Luk_1:17); but we lost him in the deserts, and there he remains
until the day of his showing unto Israel, Luk_1:80. And now at last that day dawns,
and a welcome day it was to them that waited for it more than they that waited for
the morning. Observe here,
I. The date of the beginning of John's baptism, when it was that he appeared; this
is here taken notice of, which was not by the other evangelists, that the truth of the
thing might be confirmed by the exact fixing of the time. And it is dated,
1. By the government of the heathen, which the Jews were under, to show that they
were a conquered people, and therefore it was time for the Messiah to come to set up
a spiritual kingdom, and an eternal one, upon the ruins of all the temporal dignity
and dominion of David and Judah.
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4. (1.) It is dated by the reign of the Roman emperor; it was in the fifteenth year of
Tiberius Caesar, the third of the twelve Caesars, a very bad man, given to
covetousness, drunkenness, and cruelty; such a man is mentioned first (saith Dr.
Lightfoot), as it were, to teach us what to look for from that cruel and abominable
city wherein Satan reigned in all ages and successions. The people of the Jews, after a
long struggle, were of late made a province of the empire, and were under the
dominion of this Tiberius; and that country which once had made so great a figure,
and had many nations tributaries to it, in the reigns of David and Solomon, is now
itself an inconsiderable despicable part of the Roman empire, and rather trampled
upon than triumphed in.
- En quo discordia cives, Perduxit miseros
- What dire effects from civil discord flow!
The lawgiver was now departed from between Judah's feet; and, as an evidence of
that, their public acts are dated by the reign of the Roman emperor, and therefore
now Shiloh must come.
(2.) It is dated by the governments of the viceroys that ruled in the several parts of
the Holy Land under the Roman emperor, which was another badge of their
servitude, for they were all foreigners, which bespeaks a sad change with that people
whose governors used to be of themselves (Jer_30:21), and it was their glory. How is
the gold become dim! [1.] Pilate is here said to be the governor, president, or
procurator, of Judea. This character is given of him by some other writers, that he
was a wicked man, and one that made no conscience of a lie. He reigned ill, and at
last was displaced by Vitellius, president of Syria, and sent to Rome, to answer for his
mal-administrations. [2.] The other three are called tetrarchs, some think from the
countries which they had the command of, each of them being over a fourth part of
that which had been entirely under the government of Herod the Great. Others think
that they are so called from the post of honour they held in the government; they had
the fourth place, or were fourth-rate governors: the emperor was the first, the pro-
consul, who governed a province, the second, a king the third, and a tetrarch the
fourth. So Dr. Lightfoot.
JAMISON, "Luk_3:1-20. Preaching, baptism, and imprisonment of John.
(See on Mat_3:1-12; see on Mar_6:17, etc.).
Here the curtain of the New Testament is, as it were, drawn up, and the greatest of
all epochs of the Church commences. Even our Lord’s own age (Luk_3:23) is
determined by it [Bengel]. No such elaborate chronological precision is to be found
elsewhere in the New Testament, and it comes fitly from him who claims it as the
peculiar recommendation of his Gospel, that he had “accurately traced down all
things from the first” (Luk_1:3). Here, evidently, commences his proper narrative.
Also see on Mat_3:1.
the fifteenth year of Tiberius — reckoning from the period when he was
admitted, three years before Augustus’ death, to a share of the empire [Webster and
Wilkinson], about the end of the year of Rome 779, or about four years before the
usual reckoning.
Pilate ... governor of Judea — His proper title was Procurator, but with more
than the usual powers of that office. After holding it about ten years he was ordered
to Rome, to answer to charges brought against him, but ere he arrived Tiberius died
(a.d. 35), and soon after Pilate committed suicide.
4

5. Herod — (See on Mar_6:14).
Philip — a different and very superior Philip to the one whose wife Herodias went
to live with Herod Antipas. (See Mar_6:17).
Iturea — to the northeast of Palestine; so called from Ishmael’s son Itur or Jetur
(1Ch_1:31), and anciently belonging to the half tribe of Manasseh.
Trachonitis — farther to the northeast, between Iturea and Damascus; a rocky
district, infested by robbers, and committed by Augustus to Herod the Great to keep
in order.
Abilene — still more to the northeast, so called from Abila, eighteen miles from
Damascus [Robinson].
CALVIN, "Luke 3:1.When Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea It is probable
that this was the second year of Pilate’s government: for since Tiberius had held
the reins of government, he had, as Josephus informs us, (xviii. 2:2,) appointed
Valerius Gratus to be governor of Judea, in room of Annius Rufus. This change
might take place in his second year. The same Josephus writes, that Valerius was
governor of Judea for “eleven years, when Pontius Pilate came as his successor,”
(Ant. 18:2:2.) Pilate, therefore, had governed the province for two years, when
John began to preach the Gospel. This Herod, whom Luke makes tetrarch of
Judea, was the second heir of Herod the Great, and succeeded to his father by
will. Archelaus had received the ethnarchy of Judea, but, when he was banished
to Vienna (Jos. Wars, 2, vii. 3) by Augustus, that portion fell into the hands of
the Romans. Luke mentions here two sons of Herod, — Herod Antipas, who had
been made tetrarch of Galilee, and governed Samaria and Peraea, — and Philip,
who was tetrarch of Trachonitis and Iturea, and reigned from the sea of
Tiberias, or Gennesareth, to the foot of Lebanon, which is the source of the river
Jordan.
Lysanias has been falsely supposed to be the son of Ptolemy Mennaeus, King of
Chalcis, who had been long before put to death by Cleopatra, about thirty years
before the birth of Christ, as Josephus relates, (Ant. 15:4:1.) He could hardly
even be the grandson of Ptolemy, who, as the same Josephus records, kindled the
Parthian war, (Wars, 1, xiii. 1;) for then he must have been more than sixty years
of age at the time of which Luke speaks. Besides, as it was under Antigonus that
the Parthian war commenced, he must even then have been a full-grown man.
Now Ptolemy Mennaeus died not long after the murder of Julius Caesar, during
the triumvirate of Lepidus, Antony, and Octavius, (Jos. Wars, 1, xiii. 1.) But as
this grandson of Ptolemy bore the name of Lysanias as well as his father, he
might have left a son who had the same surname. Meanwhile, there can be no
hesitation in rejecting the error of those who make Lysanias to live sixty years
after he had been slain by Cleopatra.
The word Tetrarch is here used in a sense not quite accurate, as if the whole
country had been divided into four parts. But as at first there was a fourfold
division into districts, so afterwards, when other changes took place, the names
Tetrarch and Tetrarchies were retained by way of honor. In this sense Pliny
enumerates seventeen tetrarchies of one country.
BARCLAY, "THE COURIER OF THE KING (Luke 3:1-6)
5

6. 3:1-6 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate
was governor of Judaea, and when Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother
Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and the district of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch
of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came
to John, the son of Zacharias, when he was in the desert. So he came into the
territory around Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance whereby sins might
be forgiven--as it stands written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet,
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Get ready the road of the Lord,
make his paths straight; every ravine shall be filled up; every mountain and hill
will be made low; the twisted places will be made into straight roads and the
rough places into smooth; and all flesh shall see God's instrument of salvation.'"
To Luke the emergence of John the Baptist was one of the hinges on which
history turned. So much so is that the case that he dates it in no fewer than six
different ways.
(i) Tiberius was the successor of Augustus and therefore the second of the
Roman emperors. As early as A.D. 11 or 12 Augustus had made him his
colleague in the imperial power but he did not become sole emperor until A.D.
14. The fifteenth year of his reign would therefore be A.D. 28-29. Luke begins by
setting the emergence of John against a world background, the background of
the Roman Empire.
(ii) The next three dates Luke gives are connected with the political organization
of Palestine. The title tetrarch (see Greek #5075 and Greek #5076) literally means
governor of a fourth part. In such provinces as Thessaly and Galatia, which were
divided into four sections or areas, the governor of each part was known as a
tetrarch; but later the word widened its meaning and came to mean the governor
of any part. Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. after the reign of about forty years.
He divided his kingdom between three of his sons and in the first instance the
Romans approved the decision.
(a) To Herod Antipas were left Galilee and Peraea. He reigned from 4 B.C. to
A.D. 39 and therefore Jesus' life was lived in Herod's reign and very largely in
Herod's dominions in Galilee.
(b) To Herod Philip were left Ituraea and Trachonitis. He reigned from 4 B.C. to
A.D. 33. Caesarea Philippi was called after him and was actually built by him.
(c) To Archelaus were left Judaea, Samaria and Edom. He was a thoroughly bad
king. The Jews in the end actually petitioned Rome for his removal; and Rome,
impatient of the continual troubles in Judaea, installed a procurator or governor.
That is how the Romans came directly to rule Judaea. At this time Pilate, who
was in power from A.D. 25 until A.D. 37, was the Roman governor. So in this one
sentence Luke gives us a panoramic view of the division of the kingdom which
had once belonged to Herod the Great.
(iii) Of Lysanias we know practically nothing.
6

7. (iv) Having dealt with the world situation and the Palestinian political situation,
Luke turns to the religious situation and dates John's emergence as being in the
priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. There never at any time were two high-
priests at the one tine. What then does Luke mean by giving these two names?
The high-priest was at one and the same time the civil and the religious head of
the community. In the old days the office of high-priest had been hereditary and
for life. But with the coining of the Romans the office was the object of all kinds
of intrigue. The result was that between 37 B.C. and A.D. 26 there were no fewer
than twenty-eight different high-priests. Now Annas was actually high-priest
from A.D. 7 until A.D. 14. He was therefore at this time out of office; but he was
succeeded by no fewer than four of his sons and Caiaphas was his son-in-law.
Therefore, although Caiaphas was the reigning high-priest, Annas was the power
behind the throne. That is in fact why Jesus was brought first to aim after his
arrest (John 18:13) although at that time he was not in office. Luke associates his
name with Caiaphas because, although Caiaphas was the actual high-priest,
Annas was still the most influential priestly figure in the land.
Luke 3:4-6 are a quotation from Isaiah 40:3-5. When a king proposed to tour a
part of his dominions in the east, he sent a courier before him to tell the people to
prepare the roads. So John is regarded as the courier of the king. But the
preparation on which he insisted was a preparation of heart and of life. "The
king is coming," he said. "Mend, not your roads, but your lives." There is laid on
everyone of us the duty to make life fit for the King to see.
COFFMAN, "In this chapter lies the record of the emergence of John the Baptist
(Luke 3:1-6), the message he delivered (Luke 3:7-14), his announcement of the
Christ (Luke 3:15-17), the conclusion of John's ministry and the baptism of Jesus
(Luke 3:18-21), and the genealogy of Jesus as traced through Mary (Luke
3:23-38).
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being
governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Iturea and Trachinitis, and
Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the
word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. (Luke 3:1-2)
The fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius ... On Sept. 17,14 A.D., this ruler
ascended the throne of the Roman Empire.[1]; Luke 3:23 of this chapter states
that Jesus, very near this time, was "about thirty years of age." This was the
consideration that led to the mistake in our present calendar of dating Jesus'
birth at the beginning of our era in the year 1. It is now known, however, that
Tiberius was reigning at the beginning of the year 11 A.D. The Encyclopedia
Britannica has this:
From the beginning of 11, when he celebrated a magnificent triumph, to the time
of the emperor's death in 14, Tiberius remained almost entirely in Italy, and held
rather the position of joint-emperor than that of expectant heir.[2]
All of the provincial affairs of the empire were in the hands of Tiberius from the
date 11 A.D.; and, as Robertson noted, "Luke would naturally use the provincial
point of view."[3] This dates the emergence of John the Baptist and the
7

8. beginning of the ministry of Christ, the latter being in 26 A.D., and John's
ministry having been prior to that, with the two overlapping somewhat, as
detailed in John's Gospel. This harmonizes with a date of April 6,30 A.D. for
Jesus' crucifixion, as recently determined scientifically through computer
studies.[4] It is further corroborated by Matthew's Gospel, which definitely
placed the birth of Christ prior to the death of Herod the Great (4 B.C.). The
calculation based on John 2:20, where Jesus' enemies affirmed that the temple
had been under construction for forty-six years, also confirms this. "The temple
was begun the year the emperor came to Syria; and this was in 20 or 19 B.C."[5]
Adding the forty-six years brings us to the year 26 A.D. in which the first
passover of our Lord's ministry occurred. Any more exact determination of the
date would appear to be impossible at this time, as the many contradictory
opinions of great scholars indicate.
It will be noted that Luke cited no less than six notable persons in high office
with the Roman empire and also with the Jews, nailing down the historical
context of this record with the most dogmatic certainty. This student has an
impression that Luke's citing so many names here was prompted by some
uncertainty on his part with regard to the exact meaning of "fifteenth year of
Tiberius," knowing perhaps that it could have been counted from either 11 A.D.
or 14 A.D.
Here is a list of the dates history has assigned to the periods when each of the
notables Luke here mentioned exercised his authority:
Pontius Pilate, Roman Governor of Judaea (26 A.D. to 36 A.D.). Herod
(Antipas), tetrarch of Galilee (4 B.C. to 39 A.D.). (Herod) Philip, tetrarch of
Iturea (4 B.C. to 34 A.D.). Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene (not certainly known).[6]
Annas and Caiaphas, high priests in Jerusalem: Annas was high priest from 7
B.C., and although deposed in 15 A.D., continued to be recognized by the Jews as
the true high priest. Caiaphas was only one of five sons and sons-in-law of
Annas, among whom the high priesthood was rotated during New Testament
times.[7] Caiaphas was named high priest, perhaps briefly, in 18 A.D.; and
Dummelow stated that he was appointed "before 26 A.D., being deposed in 37
A.D."[8] Significantly, Luke regarded Annas and Caiaphas as joint-high priests,
corresponding exactly with statements in John.
The date of 26 A.D., as accepted in this commentary for the baptism of Jesus, is
not denied by any of the dates noted in the table.
The word of God came to John ... It is not related just how the word of God came
to John, for God spoke of old to the fathers by the prophets in various ways
(Hebrews 1:1).
[1] Jack P. Lewis, Historical Backgrounds of Bible History (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), p. 143.
[2] Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago: William Benton, Publisher, 1961), Vol. 22,
p. 177.
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9. [3] A. T. Robertson, A Harmony of the Gospels (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1922), p. 264.
[4] Roger Rusk, "The Day He Died," article in Christianity Today (Vol. 18, No.
19, March 1974).
[5] A. T. Robertson, op. cit., p. 265.
[6] The dates of all four of these secular rulers are from the Encyclopedia
Britannica.
[7] H. C. Hervey, The Pulpit Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), Vol. 18, Acts I, p. 123.
[8] J. R. Dummelow, Commentary on the Holy Bible (New York: Macmillan
Company, 1837), p. 708.
COKE, "Luke 3:1. Now in the fifteenth year, &c.— Though the evangelist has
told us in what year the Baptist made his first public appearance, he has not
intimated in what period of his ministry Jesus came to be baptized; (see Luke
3:21.) wherefore, seeing the Baptist's fame had spread itself in every corner, and
brought people to him from all quarters, it is probable that he had preached at
least several months before our Lord arrived at Bethabara. If so, as it is natural
to think that John came abroad in the spring, Jesus could not be baptized by him
soonerthan in the summer or autumn. The reign of Tiberius had two
commencements; one when Augustus made him his colleague in the empire, and
another when he began to reign alone after Augustus's death. If, as historians tell
us, Tiberius's pro-consular empire began about three years before Augustus
died, that is to say, August 28, in the year of our Lord, 11, and from the building
of Rome 764, the whole ofthat year would, by common computation, be reckoned
the first of Tiberius; and consequently, his fifteenth year, though really
beginning August 28, in the year of our Lord 24, and from the building of Rome
778, would be reckoned from the January preceding. Supposing then, that the
Baptist begantopreachinthespring of this fifteenth year, according to common
computation, and that Jesus came to him in the summer or autumn following,
the latter would be, at his baptism, thirty years of age, a few days more or less,
provided we fix his birth to September, from the building of Rome 748, that is, a
little more than a year before Herod died;—or, but twenty-nine years of age, if
we suppose that he was not born till September, from the building of Rome 749,
that is, a few months only before Herod died.
At this period Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea: after the death of Herod the
Great, Augustus confirmed the partition which that prince by his latter will had
made of his dominions among his children. According to this partition,
Archelaus obtained Judea, Samaria, and Idumea, with the title of Ethnarch; for
though his father had called him king in his testament, the emperor would not
allow him that dignity, till he should do something for the Roman state which
deserved it. Archelaus, after a tyrannical reign of ten years, was deposed for his
mal-administration; and his country was made a province of the Roman empire,
9

10. under the name of Judea. Properly speaking, indeed, Judea was an appendage to
the province of Syria, being governed by a procurator, subject to the president of
that province. Yet the procurators of Judea were always vested with the power of
presidents or governors; that is to say, gave final judgment in every cause,
whether civil or criminal, without appeal, unless to the emperor, by whom
Roman citizens, in whatever part of the empire they lived, had a right to be tried,
if they demanded it. Judea therefore was in effect, a distinct province or
government from Syria. Accordingly, the evangelists give its procurators, when
they have occasion to mention them, the title of governors, as that which best
expressed the nature of their dignity. The proper business of a procurator was,
to take care of the emperor's revenues in the province belonging to him; as the
quaestor's business was to superintend the senate's revenuein the province
belonging to him. But such procurators as were the chief magistrates of a
province, had the dignities of governor and quaestor united in their persons, and
enjoyed privileges accordingly.
By virtue of the partition above-mentioned, Herod Antipas, another of the first
Herod's sons, governed Galilee and Perea, or the country beyond Jordan, with
the title of Tetrarch; which, according to some, was the proper denomination of
the fourth dignity in the empire; or, as others think, the title of one who had only
the fourth part of a country subject to him; though in process of time it was
applied to those who had any considerable share of a kingdom in their
possession. This is the Herod, under whose reign John began his ministry, and by
whom he was beheaded. It was to him likewise that Pilate sent our Lord, in the
course of his trial.
St. Luke tells us, that Philip's dominions were Iturea and Trachonitis: but
Josephus says, they were Auranitis and Trachonitis. Reland reconciles the
historian with the evangelist, by supposing that Iturea and Auranitis were
different names of the same country. The Itureans are mentioned with the
Hagarites, 1 Chronicles 5:19 and half the tribe of Manasseh is said to have seized
upon their territories. Jetur, the son of Ishmael, the son of Hagar, was their
father, and gave them their name. Trachonitis was situated between Palestine
and Coelo-Syria; its ancient name was Argob, Deuteronomy 3:13. It was full of
rocky hills, which in Herod the First's time afforded shelter to bands of robbers,
whom he was at great pains to extirpate. Abilene was a considerable city of
Syria, whose territories reached to Lebanon and Damascus, and were peopled
with great numbers of Jews.
BURKITT, "The two foregoing chapters give us an account of the birth of our
Saviour Christ, and of John the Baptist. The evangelist now leaving the history
of our blessed Saviour for eighteen years, namely till he was thirty years old, (the
Holy Ghost having thought fit to conceal that part of our Saviour's private life
from our knowledge,) he begins this chapter with a relation of the Baptist's
ministry, acquainting us with the time when, and the place where, and the
doctrine which, the Baptist taught.
Observe 1. The time described when St. John began his public ministry, namely,
when Tiberius was emperor, and Annas and Caiaphas high priests.
10

11. Observe 2. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, when the Jews were entirely under
the power of the Romans, who set four governors over them, called Tetrarchs, so
named from their ruling over a fourth part of the kingdom.
From hence the Jews might have observed, had not prejudice blinded their eyes,
that the sceptre being thus departed from Judah, according to Jacob's prophecy,
Genesis 49:10 Shiloh, or the Messiah was now come.
Again, the time when St. John began his ministry was when Annas and Caiaphas
were high priests. Under the law there were three sorts of ministers that attended
the service of the temple, namely, priests, Levites, and Nethinims; over these the
high priest was chief, who by God's command was to be the first-born of Aaron's
family.
But how came two high priests here, seeing God never appointed but one at a
time?
In answer to this, say some, the power and covetousness of the Romans put in
high priests at pleasure to officiate for gain.
Say others, the high priest was allowed his assistant or deputy who in case of his
pollution and sickness, did officiate in his place.
But that which we may profitably observe from hence, is this, the exactness and
faithfulness of this historian, St. Luke, in relating the circumstances of our
Saviour's nativity, and the Baptist's ministry. That the truth might evidently
appear, he is exact in recording the time.
BENSON, "Luke 3:1-2. Now in the fifteenth year of Tiberius — Reckoning from
the time when Augustus made him his colleague in the empire: Pontius Pilate
being governor of Judea — He was made governor in consequence of Archelaus
being banished, and his kingdom reduced into a Roman province. See note on
Matthew 2:22. And Herod — Namely, Herod Antipas; being tetrarch of
Galilee — The dominions of Herod the Great were, after his death, divided into
four parts or tetrarchies: this Herod, his son, reigned over that fourth part of his
dominions. His brother Philip reigned over another fourth part, namely, the
region of Iturea and that of Trachonitis; (that tract of land on the other side
Jordan, which had formerly belonged to the tribe of Manasseh;) and Lysanias,
(probably descended from a prince of that name, who was some years before
governor of that country,) was tetrarch of Abilene, which was a large city of
Syria, whose territories reached to Lebanon and Damascus, and contained great
numbers of Jews. Annas and Caiaphas being the high- priests — “By the original
constitution of the Israelitish state, one only could be high-priest at one time, and
the office was for life. But after the nation had fallen under the power of
foreigners, great liberties were taken with the sacred office; and high-priests,
though still of the pontifical family of Aaron, were put in or out arbitrarily, as
suited the humour, the interest, or the political views of their rulers. And though
it does not appear that they ever appointed two to officiate jointly in that station,
11

12. there is some probability that the Romans about this time made the office
annual, and that Annas and Caiaphas enjoyed it by turns. See John 11:49; John
18:13; Acts 4:6. If this was the case, which is not unlikely; or if, as some think,
the sagan, or deputy, is comprehended under the same title, we cannot justly be
surprised that they should be named as colleagues by the evangelist. In any event
it may have been usual, through courtesy, to continue to give the title to those
who had ever enjoyed that dignity, which, when they had no king, was the
greatest in the nation.” — Campbell. Thus the time of the public appearance of
John the Baptist, the harbinger of the Messiah, is distinctly marked by Luke; for
he tells us the year of the Roman emperor in which it happened, and mentions,
not only the governor or procurator of Judea, and the high-priest who then
officiated, but several contemporary princes who reigned in the neighbouring
kingdoms. By his care, in this particular, he has fixed exactly the era of the
commencement of the gospel. The word of God came unto John — John, the son
of Zacharias and forerunner of Jesus, was a priest by descent, and a prophet by
office, (Luke 1:76.) He was surnamed the Baptist, from his baptizing his
disciples; (see note on Matthew 3:1;) and was foretold anciently under the name
of Elijah, because he was to come in the spirit and power of that prophet. From
his infancy he dwelt in the wilderness, or hill-country, with his father, till the
word of God, by prophetic inspiration, or, as some think, by an audible voice
from heaven, such as the prophets of old heard, and which he knew to be God’s
by the majesty thereof, came to him — Called him forth to enter upon the work
to which he was destined before he was conceived in the womb, namely, to
prepare the Jews for the reception of the Messiah.
CONSTABLE, "Luke made detailed reference to the time when John
commenced his ministry to document the reliability of his Gospel. [Note:
Compare Thucydides 2:2 for a similarly elaborate chronological synchronism.]
Only the reference to Tiberius is necessary to date the beginning of John's
ministry that shortly preceded the commencement of Jesus' ministry. The other
references place these events in a broader historical context.
Pontius Pilate was governor (prefect) of Judea from A.D. 26 to late 36 or early
37. Herod Antipas ended his reign as tetrarch of Galilee that began in 4 B.C. by
deposition in A.D. 39. His brother Herod Philip, who ruled territories to the
northeast of Palestine from 4 B.C., died in A.D. 34. Present historical evidence
does not enable scholars to date Lysanias, the tetrarch of Abilene, an area
northeast of Damascus. Annas was Israel's high priest from A.D. 6 to 15 until the
Roman authorities deposed him. However the Jews continued to regard him as
the high priest, and he retained his title. [Note: Jeremias, pp. 157-58.] His son-in-
law Caiaphas served as the official high priest from A.D. 18 to the spring of 37.
Thus the general time frame when John began his ministry was between A.D. 26
and the spring of 37. The specific date, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, is
harder to pinpoint, but it was probably A.D. 29. [Note: Hoehner, pp. 29-37.]
Then the word of God came to John in the wilderness where he lived (cf. Luke
1:80), and he began his ministry as a prophet (cf. Isaiah 1:1; Jeremiah 1:1-3; et
al.).
NISBET, "Jewish religionism, as expressed in its decadent representatives, had
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13. opportunity afterwards of expressing what they thought of John, and a Herod
killed him. And yet here with John in the desert, and not there with the great
ones of the earth, was the word of power and the centre of interest for the
world’s progress at the time.
I. To whom the message came.—Why are we asked to believe that God should
have singled out a nation so peculiarly unattractive in their history as the Jews
would seem to have been to be His own chosen people? Yet so it is. He who most
is disposed to cavil at the Divine estimate of the world’s history, as set forth in
the Holy Scriptures, must feel that the Jew is a present problem which cannot be
explained off-hand. Clearly he has had a past; it is difficult to believe that he has
not a future—‘the wanderer of the nations’; indispensable to all, yet cruelly
persecuted and oppressed; thriving, yet never prosperous as a nation. We surely
do not make enough in our modern perplexities of the strange and unique
phenomenon of this nation to whom we believe that the Word of God came,
which bears witness in its decay to the loss of a privilege whose very memory is a
tradition of power. The great nations of the world had their opportunities and
lost them; the Jews had their opportunity and lost it. It is our turn to-day. What
are we going to do with our Imperial responsibility? There it is: Tiberius Cæsar
sits on his throne; we are shouting ourselves hoarse with our grandiloquent cries,
we think imperially, we are trying to act imperially; we open the map with pride
if red means the extent of the British Empire, we close it with shame if it means
the extent of the Empire of Jesus Christ. There are our procurators and
representatives in all parts of the world, ready to uphold the honour of the
British flag, but not quite so sure of what they ought to do with the Cross of
Jesus Christ, and very Pilates in their keen scrutiny of the political trend of
religious enterprise. There are our dependents—the different Herods which rule
by our means, to whom we exhibit too often a civilisation barely tinged with
Christian responsibility, and who, in imitating European manners, find them
largely composed of European vices. There are our allies—perhaps in some ways
more religious than ourselves—whom we leave to societies and amateurs if they
wish to study the religious sources of our strength, while we give them of our best
instruction in everything else which has to do with the construction or defence of
our material empire. Annas and Caiaphas are not wanting, rival religious
agencies, rival religious claims strive with each other in deadly theological
contest, until perplexity merges into disgust, and disgust into opposition, and the
Word of God passes on its way, leaving those channels which have choked and
polluted it.
II. The message.—Progress, not retrenchment, was in the mind of kings; an ever-
widening luxury and aggrandisement for the future, not a mournful looking into
the past. We cannot imagine ‘repentance’ as a word in the vocabularies of
Tiberius or Herod, or any way of the Lord other than their own way. If Domitian
could not blush, certainly a Herod would know and care little about his past
misdeeds. Even religion had twisted and turned God’s revelation, putting bitter
for sweet, and sweet for bitter, perverting promises and minimising judgments.
A Messiah reigning on the throne of David, an earthly kingdom and freedom
from the Roman yoke—thus they brooded and plotted, and the day of the Lord
was to them darkness. And every age has a tendency to magnify its own
13

14. importance, to proclaim its own millennium, and shout aloud its proud message,
until the voice of God is driven away into quiet corners where they can only hear
it who have ears to hear, the ready heart, and the humble mind. Is not there a
strange discrepancy between the important things as the world counts
importance and the important things according to the mind of God? And here
stands John the son of Zacharias. Here stands the Church, saying, ‘O soul, you
were made for God. Seek Him, He is your rest.’ ‘You were made for happiness, it
is here.’ ‘You are the son of God, here is He Who became Incarnate for you.’ Joy
is the never-ceasing message which God proclaims to you—heaven here, and
heaven hereafter, in the satisfaction of every longing, in the gratification of all
true aspirations.
III. We should do well not to turn a deaf ear to the appeal of special seasons for
quiet, for times of earnest and serious thought, for a resolute facing of some of
these great questions which concern time and eternity. To many a man the hour
of death is his first really quiet time, and alone with his own soul he hardly
knows it, its powers, and its needs, and its strong vitality. Gradually he has been
driven in, as outwork after outwork is taken; he can no longer take his exercise
or follow his all-absorbing sports and games. His acquaintances have gone away
from the falling house, and his friends are few, and they gradually drop off;
insensibly he is pressed in upon himself, until he finds himself alone with his
artificial life fallen from him and face to face with God. Surely we ought to make
more of the quiet times of our life. Our Lord has bid us with His own lips to
enter into our closet and shut the door and pray to our Father which is in secret.
In prayer, if it be only for a short time each day, we can stand face to face with
eternal verities, and deal with things that really signify, and talk to Him Who
links the past, the present, and the future in one.
—Rev. Canon Newbolt.
MACLAREN, “JOHN THE PREACHER OF REPENTANCE
Why does Luke enumerate so carefully the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in Luk_
3:1-2? Not only to fix the date, but, in accordance with the world-wide aspect of his
Gospel, to set his narrative in relation with secular history; and, further, to focus into
one vivid beam of light the various facts which witnessed to the sunken civil and
darkened moral and religious condition of the Jews. What more needed to be said to
prove how the ancient glory had faded, than that they were under the rule of such a
delegate as Pilate, of such an emperor as Tiberius, and that the bad brood of Herod’s
descendants divided the sacred land between them, and that the very high-
priesthood was illegally administered, so that such a pair as Annas and Caiaphas held
it in some irregular fashion between them? It was clearly high time for John to come,
and for the word of God to come to him.
The wilderness had nourished the stern, solitary spirit of the Baptist, and there the
consciousness of his mission and his message ‘came to him’-a phrase which at once
declares his affinity with the old prophets. Out of the desert he burst on the nation,
sudden as lightning, and cleaving like it. Luke says nothing as to his garb or food, but
goes straight to the heart of his message, ‘The baptism of repentance unto remission
of sins,’ in which expression the ‘remission’ depends neither on ‘baptism’ alone, nor
on ‘repentance’ alone. The outward act was vain if unaccompanied by the state of
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15. mind and will; the state of mind was proved genuine by submitting to the act.
In Luk_3:7-14 John’s teaching as the preacher of repentance is summarised. Why did
he meet the crowds that streamed out to him with such vehement rebuke? One would
have expected him to welcome them, instead of calling them ‘offspring of vipers,’ and
seeming to be unwilling that they should flee from the wrath to come. But Luke tells
why. They wished to be baptized, but there is no word of their repentance. Rather,
they were trusting to their descent as exempting them from the approaching storm,
so that their baptism would not have been the baptism which John required, being
devoid of repentance. Just because they thought themselves safe as being ‘children of
Abraham,’ they deserved John’s rough name, ‘ye offspring of vipers.’
Rabbinical theology has much to say about ‘the merits of the fathers.’ John, like every
prophet who had ever spoken to the nation of judgments impending, felt that the
sharp edge of his words was turned by the obstinate belief that judgments were for
the Gentile, and never would touch the Jew. Do we not see the same unbelief that
God can ever visit England with national destruction in full force among ourselves?
Not the virtues of past generations, but the righteousness of the present one, is the
guarantee of national exaltation.
John’s crowds were eager to be baptized as an additional security, but were slow to
repent. If heaven could be secured by submitting to a rite, ‘multitudes’ would come
for it, but the crowd thins quickly when the administrator of the rite becomes the
vehement preacher of repentance. That is so to-day as truly as it was so by the fords
of Jordan. John demanded not only repentance, but its ‘fruits,’ for there is no virtue
in a repentance which does not change the life, were such possible.
Repentance is more than sorrow for sin. Many a man has that, and yet rushes again
into the old mire. To change the mind and will is not enough, unless the change is
certified to be real by deeds corresponding. So John preached the true nature of
repentance when he called for its fruits. And he preached the greatest motive for it
which he knew, when he pressed home on sluggish consciences the close approach of
a judgment for which everything was ready, the axe ground to a fine edge, and lying
at the root of the trees. If it lay there, there was no time to lose; if it still lay, there was
time to repent before it was swinging round the woodman’s head. We have a higher
motive for repentance in ‘the goodness of God’ leading to it. But there is danger that
modern Christianity should think too little of ‘the terror of the Lord,’ and so should
throw away one of the strongest means of persuading men. John’s advice to the
various classes of hearers illustrates the truth that the commonest field of duty and
the homeliest acts may become sacred. Not high-flying, singular modes of life,
abandoning the vulgar tasks, but the plainest prose of jog-trot duty will follow and
attest real repentance. Every calling has its temptations-that is to say, every one has
its opportunities of serving God by resisting the Devil.
BI, ‘Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar
The fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar
In this year, which fell between August, A.. 28, and August, A.D. 29, the Roman
empire lay under the shadow of the darkest years of the tyrant, now an old man of
seventy-one. Among those alive at the time, and remembered since, for good or for
evil, the elder Pliny—afterwards, when a Roman admiral, killed at the first eruption,
in historical times, of Mount Vesuvius—was a child of four; Vespasian, hereafter,
with his son Titus, to crush Jerusalem, was full of the ambitions and dreams of a
youth of nineteen; Caligula, one day to horrify the world by the spectacle of an insane
despot at the head of the empire, was a lad of sixteen; Claudius, one day to be
15

16. emperor, was a poor lame trembling man of thirty-eight; and among the marriages of
the year was that of the daughter of the ill-fated Germanicus, from which, nine years
later, was born Nero. Pontius Pilate had been two years procurator of Samaria,
Judaea, and Idumea; Herod Antipas had been reigning for about thirty-two years
over Galilee and Samaria, and was now a man of about fifty; and Philip, his brother,
about the same age, and of the same standing as ruler, was still tetrarch of the rest of
the land beyond the Jordan, living a quiet life, usefully and worthily. (Dr. C. Geikie.)
The date
Singularly enough this very exactness is a source of difficulty. Augustus Caesar died,
and was succeeded by Tiberius in August, A.D. 14. Reckoning from this date, the
fifteenth year of Tiberius was from August,
A.D. 28, to August, A.D. 29. But this does not fit with the date which, onother
grounds, we are led to assign to the beginning of our Lord’s ministry, viz., A.D. 27.
The solution, however, is simple and satisfactory. The reign of Tiberius as sole
emperor began at the death of Augustus; but he had been joint emperor with
Augustus—a sort of vice-emperor—for two years previously. The word used by St.
Luke, translated “ reign,” by no means implies sole empire, but applies with perfect
accuracy to this share in the government, which had special reference to the
provinces. We therefore understand the fifteenth year of Tiberius to have begun in
August, A.D. 26. (E. R. Condor, D. D.)
Lysanias
It has been said that St. Luke erred in stating that Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene in
the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. [Strauss, “Leben Jesu,” § 44.]
Lysanias, it is said, died sixty years previously, and St. Luke has ignorantly made him
alive, being deceived by the fact that Abilene continued to be called the Abilene of
Lysanias, after its former ruler, for sixty or seventy years subsequently. Now, here it
is in the first place assumed, without any word of proof, that the Lysanias who died
B.C. 34, once ruled over Abilene. Secondly, it is assumed, also without any word of
proof, that Abilene came to be known as the Abilene of Lysanias, from him. I venture
to assert that there is absolutely no ground for believing that the old Lysanias was
ever ruler of Abilene; and I venture to maintain that Abilene came to be called the
Abilene of Lysanias from a second or later Lysanias, a son of the former one, who is
the person intended by St. Luke. Till recently, Christian apologists were defied to
show historically that there was ever more than one Lysanias, and were accused of
inventing a second to escape a difficulty. But a few years since a discovery was made
which must be regarded by all reasonable persons as having set the whole matter at
rest. This was an inscription found near Baalbek, containing a dedication of a
memorial tablet or statue to “Fenodorus, son of the tetrarch Lysanias, and to
Lysanias, her children,” by (apparently) the widow of the first and the mother of the
second Lysanias. Fenodorus was already known as having succeeded the first
Lysanias in his government. It is thus clear that there were, as previously suspected,
two persons of the name, a father and a son, and there is not the slightest reason for
doubting that the latter was tetrareh of Abilene in the fifteenth of Tiberius.
(Professor Rawlinson.)
EBC 1-22, "THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS.
16

17. WHEN the Old Testament closed, prophecy had thrown upon the screen of the future
the shadows of two persons, cast in heavenly light. Sketched in outline rather than in
detail, still their personalities were sufficiently distinct to attract the gaze and hopes
of the intervening centuries; while their differing, though related missions were
clearly recognized. One was the Coming ONE, who should bring the "consolation" of
Israel, and who should Himself be that Consolation; and gathering into one august
title all such glittering epithets as Star, Shiloh, and Emmanuel, prophecy reverently
saluted Him as "the Lord," paying Him prospective homage and adoration. The other
was to be the herald of another Dispensation, proclaiming the new King, running
before the royal chariot, even as Elijah ran from Ahab to the ivory palace at Jezreel,
his Voice then dying away in silence, as he himself passes out of sight behind the
throne. Such were the two figures that prophecy, in a series of dissolving views, had
thrown forward from the Old into the New Testament; and such was the signal honor
accorded to the Baptist, that while many of the Old Testament characters appear as
reflections in the New, his is the only human shadow thrown back from the New into
the Old.
The forerunner thus had a virtual existence long before the time of the Advent.
Known by his synonym of Elias, the prophesied, he became as a real presence,
moving here and there among their thoughts and dreams, and lighting up their long
night with the beacon-fires of new and bright hopes. His voice seemed familiar, even
though it came to them in far-distant echoes, and the listening centuries had caught
exactly both its accent and its message. And so the preparer of the way found his own
path prepared: for John’s path and "the way of the Lord" were the same; it was the
way of obedience and of sacrifice. The two lives were thus thrown into conjunction
from the first, the lesser light revolving around the Greater, as they fulfill their
separate courses-separate indeed, as far as the human must ever be separated from
the Divine, yet most closely related.
Living thus through the pre-Advent centuries, both in the Divine purpose and in the
thoughts and hopes of men, so early designated to his heraldic office, "My
messenger," in a singular sense, as no other of mortals could ever be, it is no matter
of apology, or even of surprise, that his birth should be attended by so much of the
supernatural. The Divine designation seems to imply, almost to demand, a Divine
declaration; and in the birth-story of the Baptist the flashes of the supernatural, such
as the angelic announcement and the miraculous conception, come with a simple
naturalness. The prelude is in perfect symphony with the song. St. Luke is the only
Evangelist who gives us the birth-story. The other three speak only of his mission,
introducing him to us abruptly, as, like another Moses, he comes down from his new
Sinai with the tables of the law in his hands and the strange light upon his face. St.
Luke takes us back to the infancy, that we may see the beginnings of things, the
Divine purpose enwrapped in swaddling clothes, as it once was set adrift in a rush-
plaited ark. Back of the message he puts the man, and back of the man he puts the
child-for is not the child a prophecy or invoice of the man?-while all around the child
he puts the environment of home, showing us the subtle, powerful influences that
touched and shaped the young prophet-life. As a plant carries up into its outmost
leaves the ingredients of the rock around which its fibers cling, so each upspringing
life-even the life of a prophet-carries into its farthest reaches the unconscious
influence of its home associations. And so St. Luke sketches for us that quiet home in
the hill-country, whose windows opened and whose doors turned toward Jerusalem,
the "city of the great" and invisible "King." He shows us Zacharias and Elisabeth, true
saints of God, devout of heart and blameless of life, down into whose placid lives an
angel came, rippling them with the excitements of new promises and hopes. Where
could the first meridian of the New Dispensation run better than through the home
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18. of these seers of things unseen, these watchers for the dawn? Where could be so
fitting a receptacle for the Divine purpose, where it could so soon and so well ripen?
Had not God elected them to this high honor, and Himself prepared them for it? Had
He not purposely kept back all earlier, lower shoots, that their whole growth should
be upward, one reaching out towards heaven, like the palm, its fruit clustering
around its outmost branches? We can easily imagine what intense emotion the
message of the angel would produce, and that Zacharias would not so much miss the
intercourse of human speech now that God’s thoughts were audible in his soul. What
loving preparation would Elisabeth make for this child of hers, who was to be "great
in the sight of the Lord!" what music she would strike out from its name, "John" (the
Grace of Jehovah), the name which was both the-sesame and symbol of the New
Dispensation! How her eager heart would outrun the slow months, as she threw
herself forward in anticipation among the joys of maternity, a motherhood so
exalted! And why did she hide herself for the five months, but that she might prepare
herself for her great mission? That in her seclusion she might hear more distinctly
the voices that spake to her from above, or that in the silence she might hear her own
heart sing?
But neither the eagerness of Elisabeth nor the dumbness of Zacharias is allowed to
hasten the Divine purpose. That purpose, like the cloud of old, accommodates itself
to human conditions, the slow processions of the humanities; and not until the time
is "full" does the hope become a realization, and the infant voice utter its first cry.
And now is gathered the first congregation of the new era. It is but a family
gathering, as the neighbors and relatives come together for the circumcising of the
child-which rite was always performed on the corresponding day of the week after its
birth; but it is significant as being the first of those ever-widening circles that moving
outwards from its central impulse, spread rapidly over the land, as they are now
rapidly spreading over all lands. Zacharias, of course, was present; but mute and
deaf, he could only sit apart, a silent spectator. Elisabeth, as we may gather from
various references and hints, was of modest and retiring disposition, fond of putting
herself in the shade, of standing behind; and so now the conduct of the ceremony
seems to have fallen into the hands of some of the relatives. Presuming that the
general custom will be observed, that the first-born child will take the name of the
father, they proceed to name it "Zacharias." This, however, Elisabeth cannot allow,
and with an emphatic negative, she says, "Not so; but he shall be called John."
Persistent still in their own course, and not satisfied with the mother’s affirmation,
the friends turn to the aged and mute priest, and by signs ask how they shall name
the child (and had Zacharias heard the conversation, he certainly would not have
waited for their question, but would have spoken or written at once); and Zacharias,
calling for the writing-table, which doubtless had been his close companion, giving
him his only touch of the other world for the still nine months, wrote, "His name is
John." Ah, they are too late! The child was named even long before its birth, named,
too, within the Holy Place of the Temple, and by an angel of God. "John" and "Jesus,"
those two names, since the visit of the Virgin, have been like two bells of gold,
throwing waves of music across heart and home, ringing their welcome to "the Christ
who is to be," the Christ who is now so near. "His name is John"; and with that brief
stroke of his pen Zacharias half rebukes these intrusions and interferences of the
relatives, and at the same time makes avowal of his own faith. And as he wrote the
name "John," his present obedience making atonement for a past unbelief, instantly
the paralyzed tongue was loosed, and he spake, blessing God, throwing the name of
his child into a psalm; for what is the "Benedictus" of Zacharias but "John" written
large and full, one sweet and loud magnifying of "the Grace and Favor of Jehovah?"
It is only a natural supposition that when the inspiration of the song had passed
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19. away, Zacharias’ speech would begin just where it was broken off, and that he would
narrate to the guests the strange vision of the Temple, with the angel’s prophecy
concerning the child. And as the guests depart to their own homes, each one carries
the story of this new Apocalypse, as he goes to spread the evangel, and to wake
among the neighboring hills the echoes of Zacharias’s song. No wonder that fear
came upon all that dwelt round about, and that they who pondered these things in
their hearts should ask, "What then shall this child be?"
And here the narrative of the childhood suddenly ends, for with two brief sentences
our Evangelist dismisses the thirty succeeding years. He tells us that "the hand of the
Lord was with the child," doubtless arranging its circumstances, giving it
opportunities, preparing it for the rugged manhood and the rugged mission which
should follow in due course; and that "the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit," the
very same expression he afterwards uses in reference to the Holy Child, an
expression we can best interpret by the angel’s prophecy, "He shall be filled with the
Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb." His native strength of spirit was made
doubly strong by the touch of the Divine Spirit, as the iron, coming from its baptism
of fire, is hardened and tempered into steel. And so we see that in the Divine
economy even a consecrated childhood is a possible experience; and that it is
comparatively infrequent is owing rather to our warped views, which possibly may
need some readjustment, than to the Divine purpose and provision. Is the child born
into the Divine displeasure, branded from its birth with the mark of Cain? Is it not
rather born into the Divine mercy, and all enswathed in the abundance of Divine
love? True, it is born of a sinful race, with tendencies to self-will which may lead it
astray; but it is just as true that it is born within the covenant of grace; that around
its earliest and most helpless years is thrown the aegis of Christ’s atonement; and
that these innate tendencies are held in check and neutralized by what is called
"prevenient grace." In the struggle for that child-life are the powers of darkness the
first in the field, outmarching and out-maneuvering the powers of light? Why, the
very thought is half-libelous. Heaven’s touch is upon the child from the first. Ignore
it as we may, deny it as some will, yet back in life’s earliest dawn the Divine Spirit is
brooding over the unformed world, parting its firmaments of right and wrong, and
fashioning a new Paradise. Is evil the inevitable? Must each life taste the forbidden
fruit before it can attain to a knowledge of the good? In other words, is sin a great
though dire necessity? If a necessity, then it is no longer sin, and we must seek for
another and more appropriate name. No; childhood is Christ’s purchased and
peculiar possession; and the best type of religious experience is that which is marked
by no rapid transitions, which breaks upon the soul softly and sweetly as a dawn, its
beginnings imperceptible, and so unremembered. So not without meaning is it that
right at the gate of the New Dispensation we find the cradle of a consecrated
childhood. Placed there by the gate, so that all may see it, and placed in the light, so
that all may read it, the childhood of the Baptist tells us what our childhood might
oftener be, if only its earthly guardians whose hands are so powerful to impress and
mould the plastic soul-were, like Zacharias and Elisabeth, themselves prayerful,
blameless, and devout.
Now the scene shifts; for we read he "was in the deserts till the day of his showing
unto Israel." From the fact that this clause is intimately connected with the
preceding, "and the child grew and waxed strong in spirit"-the two clauses having but
one subject-some have supposed that John was but a child when he turned away
from the parental roof and sought the wilderness. But this does not follow. The two
parts of the sentence are only separated by a comma, but that pause may bridge over
a chasm wide enough for the flow of numerous years, and between the childhood and
the wilderness the narrative would almost compel us to put a considerable space. As
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20. his physical development was, in mode and proportion, purely human, with no hint
of anything unnatural or even supernatural, so we may suppose was his mental and
spiritual development. The voice must become articulate; it must play upon the
alphabet, and turn sound into speech. It must learn, that it may think; it must study,
that it may know. And so the human teacher is indispensable. Children reared of
wolves may learn to bark, but, in spite of mythology, they will not build cities and
found empires. And where could the child find better instructors than in his own
parents, whose quiet lives had been passed in an atmosphere of prayer, and to whom
the very jots and tittles of the law were familiar and dear? Indeed, we can scarcely
suppose that after having prepared Zacharias and Elisabeth for their great mission,
working what is something like a miracle, that she and no one else shall be the
mother of the forerunner, the child should then be torn away from its natural
guardians before the processes of its education are complete. It is true they were both
"well stricken in years," but that phrase would cover any period from threescore
years and upwards, and to that three score the usual longevity of the Temple
ministrants would easily allow another twenty years to be added. May we not, then,
suppose that the child-Baptist studied and played under the parental roof, the bright
focus to which their hopes, and thoughts, and prayers converged; that here, too, he
spent his boyhood and youth, preparing for that priestly office to which his lineage
entitled and designated him? For why should not the "messenger of the Lord" be
priest as well? We have no further mention of Zacharias and Elisabeth, but it is not
improbable that their death was the occasion of John’s retirement to the deserts, now
a young man, perhaps, of twenty years.
According to custom, John now should have been introduced and consecrated to the
priesthood, twenty years being the general age of the initiates; but in obedience to a
higher call, John renounces the priesthood, and breaks with the Temple at once and
for ever. Retiring to the deserts, which, wild and gloomy, stretch westward from the
Dead Sea, and assuming the old prophet garb-a loose dress of camel’s hair, bound
with a thong of leather-the student becomes the recluse. Inhabiting some mountain
cave, tasting only the coarse fare that nature offered-locusts and wild honey-the new
Elias has come and has found his Cherith; and here, withdrawn far from "the
madding crowd" and the incessant babble of human talk, with no companions save
the wild beasts and the bright constellations of that Syrian sky, as they wheel round
in their nightly dance, the lonely man opens his heart to God’s great thoughts and
purposes, and by constant prayer keeps his clear, trumpet voice in drill. Evidently,
John had seen enough of so-called "society," with its cold conventionalities and
hypocrisies; his keen eye had seen only too easily the hollowness and corruption that
lay beneath the outer gloss and varnish-the thin veneer that but half concealed the
worminess and rottenness that lay beneath. John goes out into the desert like
another scapegoat, bearing deep within his heart the sins of his nation-sins, alas,
which are yet unrepented of and unforgiven! It was doubtless thoughts like these,
and the constant brooding upon them, which gave to the Baptist that touch of
melancholy that we can detect both in his features and his speech. Austere in person,
with a wail in his voice like the sighing of the wind, or charged at times with
suppressed thunders, the Baptist reminds us of the Peri, who-
"At the gate Of Eden stood disconsolate."
Sin had become to John an awful fact. He could see nothing else. The fragments of
the law’s broken tables strewed the land, even the courts of the Temple itself, and
men were everywhere tripping against them and falling. But John did see something
else; it was the day of the Lord, now, very near, the day that should come scathing
and burning "as a furnace," unless, meanwhile, Israel should repent. So the prophet
mused, and as be mused the fire burned within his soul, even the fire of the Refiner,
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21. the fire of God.
Our Evangelist characterizes the opening of John’s ministry with an official word. He
calls it a "showing," a "manifestation," putting upon the very word the stamp and
sanction of a Divine appointment. He is careful, too, to mark the time, so giving the
Gospel story its place among the chronologies of the world; which he does in a most
elaborate way. He first reads the time on the horoscope of the Empire, whose
swinging pendulum was a rising or a falling throne; and he states that it was "the
fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar," counting the two years of his joint rule
with Augustus. Then, as if that were not enough, he notes the hour as indicated on
the four quarters of the Hebrew commonwealth, the hour when Pilate, Herod, Philip,
and Lysanias were in conjunction, ruling in their divided heavens. Then, as if that
even were not enough, he marks the ecclesiastical hour as indicated by the marble
time-piece of the Temple; it was-when Annas and Caiaphas held jointly the high
priesthood. What is the meaning of this elaborate mechanism, wheels within wheels?
Is it because the hour is so important, that it needs the hands of an emperor, a
governor, three tetrarchs, and two high priests to point it? Ewald is doubtless right in
saying that St. Luke, as the historian, wished "to frame the Gospel history into the
great history of the world" by giving precise dates; but if that were the Evangelist’s
main reason, such an accumulation of time-evidence were scarcely necessary; for
what do the subsequent statements add to the precision of the first-"In the fifteenth
year of Tiberius?" We must, then, seek for the Evangelist’s meaning elsewhere.
Among the oldest of the Hebrew prophecies concerning the Messiah was that of
Jacob. Closing his life, as Moses did afterwards, with a wonderful vision, he looked
down on the far-off years, and speaking of the coming "Seed," he said, "The scepter
shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh
come". (Gen_49:10) Might not this prophecy have been in the thought of the
Evangelist when he stayed so much longer than his wont to note times and seasons?
Why does he mention Herod and Pilate, Philip and Lysanias, but to show how the
scepter has, alas! departed from Judah, and the lawgiver from between his feet, and
how the chosen land is torn to pieces by the Roman eagles? And why does he name
Annas and Caiaphas, but to show how the same disintegrating forces are at work
even within the Temple, when the rightful high priest can be set aside and
superseded by the nominee of a foreign and a Pagan power? Verily "the glory has
departed from Israel"; and if St. Luke introduces foreign emperors, tetrarchs, and
governors, it is that they may ring a muffled peal over the grave of a dead nation, a
funeral knell, which, however, shall be the signal for the coming of the Shiloh, and
the gathering of the people unto Him.
Such were the times-times of disorganization, disorder, and almost despair-when the
word of God came unto John in the wilderness. It came "upon" him, as it literally
reads, probably in one of those wonderful theophanies, as when God spake to Moses
from the flaming bush, or as when He appeared to Elijah upon Horeb, sending him
back to an unfinished task. John obeyed. Emerging from his wilderness retreat, clad
in his strange attire, spare in build, his features sharp and worn with fasting, his
long, disheveled hair telling of his Nazarite vow, he moves down to the Jordan like an
apparition. His appearance is everywhere hailed with mingled curiosity and delight.
Crowds come in ever-increasing numbers, not one class only, but all classes-priests,
soldiers, officials, people-until it seemed as if the cities had emptied themselves into
the Jordan valley. And what went they "out for to see?" "A reed shaken with the
wind?" A prophesier of smooth things? A preacher of revolt against tyranny? Nay;
John was no wind-shaken reed; he was rather the heavenly wind itself, swaying the
multitudes at will, and bending hearts and consciences into penitence and prayer.
John was no preacher of revolt against the powers that be; in his mind, Israel had
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22. revolted more and more, and he must bring them back to their allegiance, or himself
die in the attempt. John was no preacher of smooth things; there was not even the
charm of variety about his speech. The one burden of his message was, "Repent: for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand." But the effect was marvelous. The lone voice from
the wilderness swept over the land like the breath of God. Borne forwards on a
thousand lips, it echoed through the cities and penetrated into remotest places.
Judaea, Samaria, arid even distant Galilee felt the quiver of the strange voice, and
even from the shore of the Northern Sea men came to sit at the feet of the new
teacher, and to call themselves John’s disciples. So widespread and so deep was the
movement, it sent its ripples even within the royal palace, awaking the curiosity, and
perhaps the conscience, of Herod himself. It was a genuine revival of religion, such as
Judaea had not witnessed since the days of Ezra, the awaking of the national
conscience and of the national hope.
Perhaps it would be difficult, by any analysis of ours, to discover or to define the
secret of John’s success. It was the resultant, not of one force, but of many. For
instance, the hour was favorable. It was the Sabbatic year, when field-work was in the
main suspended, and men everywhere had leisure, mind and hand lying, as it were,
fallow. Then, too, the very dress of the Baptist would not be without its influence,
especially on a mind so sensitive to form and color as the Hebrew mind was. Dress to
them was a form of duty. They were accustomed to weave into their tassels sacred
symbols, so making the external speak of the eternal. Their hands played on the
parti-colored threads most faithfully and sacredly; for were not these the chords of
Divine harmonies? But here is one who discards both the priestly and the civilian
dress, and who wears, instead, the rough camel’s-hair robe of the old prophets. The
very dress would thus appeal most powerfully to their imagination, carrying back
their thoughts to the time of the Theocracy, when Jehovah was not silent as now, and
when Heaven was so near, speaking by some Samuel or Elijah. Are those days
returning? they would ask. Is this the Elias who was to come and restore all things?
Surely it must be. And in the rustle of the Baptist’s robe they heard the rustle of
Elijah’s mantle, dropping a second time by these Jordan banks. Then, too, there was
the personal charm of the man. John was young, if years are our reckoning, for he
counted but thirty; but in his case the verve and energy of youth were blended with
the discretion and saintliness of age. What was the world to him, its fame, its luxury
and wealth? They were only the dust he shook from his feet, as his spirit sighed for
and soared after Heaven’s better things. He asks nothing of earth but her plainest
fare, a couch of grass, and by-and-by a grave. Then, too, there was a positiveness
about the man that would naturally attract, in a drifting, shifting, vacillating age. The
strong will is magnetic; the weaker wills follow and cluster round it, as swarming
bees cluster around their queen. And John was intensely positive. His speech was
clear-cut and incisive, with a tremendous earnestness in it, as if a "Thus saith the
Lord" were at his heart. John’s mood was not the subjunctive, where his words could
eddy among the "mays" and "mights"; it was plainly the indicative, or better still, the
imperative. He spoke as one who believed, and who intensely felt what he believed.
Then, too, there was a certain nobleness about his courage. He knew no rank, no
party; he was superior to all. He feared God too much to have any fear of man. He
spake no word for the sake of pleasing, and he kept back no word-even the hot
rebuke-for fear of offending. Truth to him was more than titles, and right was the
only royalty. How he painted the Pharisees-those shiny, slimy men, with creeping,
sinuous ways-with that dark epithet "brood of vipers!"
With what a fearless courage he denounced the incest of Herod! He will not level
down Sinai, accommodating it to royal passions! Not he. "It is not lawful for thee to
have her"-such were his words, that rolled in upon Herod’s conscience like a peal of
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23. Sinai’s thunder, telling him that law was law, that right was more than might, and
purity more than power. Then, too, there was something about his message that was
attractive. That word "the kingdom of heaven" struck upon the national heart like a
bell, and set it vibrating with new hopes, and awaking all kinds of beautiful dreams of
recovered pre-eminence and power.
But while all these were auxiliaries, factors, and co-efficients in the problem of the
Baptist’s success, they are not sufficient in themselves to account for that success. It
is not difficult for a man of superior mental attainment, and of strong individuality,
to attract a following, especially if that following be in the direction of self-interest.
The emotions and passions of humanity lie near the surface; they can be easily swept
into a storm by the strong or by the pathetic voice. But to reach the conscience, to lift
up the veil, and to pass within to that Most Holy of the human soul is what man,
unaided, cannot do. Only the Divine Voice can break those deep silences of the heart;
or if the human voice is used the power is not in the words of human speech-those
words, even the best, are but the dead wires along which the Divine Voice moves-it is
the power of God.
"Some men live near to God, as my right arm Is near to me; and then they walk
about Mailed in full proof of faith, and bear a charm That mocks at fear, and bars
the door on doubt, And dares the impossible."
Just such a man was the Baptist. He was a "man of God." He lived, and moved, and
had his being in God. Self to him was an extinct passion. Envy, pride, ambition,
jealousy, these were unknown tongues; his pure soul understood not their meaning.
Like his great prototype, "the Spirit of the Lord God" was upon him. His life was one
conscious inspiration; and John himself had been baptized with the baptism of
which he spoke, but which he himself could not give, the baptism of the Holy Ghost
and of fire. This only will account for the wonderful effects produced, by his
preaching. John, in his own experience, had antedated Pentecost, receiving the
"power from on high," and as he spoke it was with a tongue of fire, a voice in whose
accent and tone the people could detect the deeper Voice of God.
But if John could not baptize with the higher baptism, usurping the functions of the
One coming after, he could, and he did, institute a lower, symbolic baptism of water,
that thus the visible might lead up to the invisible. In what mode John’s baptism was
administered we cannot tell, nor is it material that we should know. We do know,
however, that the baptism of the Spirit-and in John’s mind the two were closely
related-was constantly referred to in Scripture as an effusion, a "pouring out," a
sprinkling, and never once as an immersion. And what was the "baptism of fire" to
the mind of John? Was it not that which the prophet Isaiah had experienced, when
the angel touched his lips with the live coal taken from the altar, pronouncing over
him the great absolution, "Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taketh
away, and thy sin purged?" (Isa_6:7) At best, the baptism of water is but a shadow of
the better thing, the outward symbol of an inward grace. We need not quarrel about
modes and forms. Scripture has purposely left them indeterminate, so that we need
not wrangle about them. There is no need that we exalt the shadow, leveling it up to
the substance; and still less should we level it down, turning it into a playground for
the schools.
Thus far the lives of Jesus and John have lain apart. One growing up in the hill-
country of Galilee, the other in the hill-country of Judaea, and then in the isolation of
the wilderness, they have never looked in each other’s face, though they have
doubtless heard often of each other’s mission. They meet at last. John had been
constantly telling of ONE who was coming after-"after," indeed, in order of time, but
"before," infinitely before, in preeminence and authority. Mightier than he, He was
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24. the Lord. John would deem it an honor to kneel down before so august a Master, to
untie and bear away His shoes; for in such a Presence servility was both becoming
and ennobling. With such words as these the crier in the wilderness had been
transferring the people’s thought from himself, and setting their hearts, listening for
the Coming One, so preparing and broadening His way. Suddenly, in one of the
pauses of his ministrations, a Stranger presents Himself, and asks that the rite of
baptism may be administered to Him. There is nothing peculiar about His dress; He
is younger than the Baptist-much younger, apparently, for the rough, ascetic life has
prematurely aged him-but such is the grace and dignity of His person, such the
mingled "strength and beauty" of His manhood, that even John, who never quailed in
the presence of mortal before, is awed and abashed now. Discerning the innate
Royalty of the Stranger, and receiving a monition from the Higher World, with which
he kept up close correspondence, the Baptist is assured that it is He, the Lord and
Christ. Immediately his whole manner changes. The voice that has swept over the
land like a whirlwind, now is hushed, subdued, speaking softly, deferentially,
reverentially. Here is a Presence in which his imperatives all melt away and
disappear, a Will that is infinitely higher than his own, a Person for whom his
baptism is out of place. John is perplexed; he hesitates, he demurs. "I have need to be
baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" and John, Elias-like, would fain have
wrapped his mantle around his face, burying out of sight his little "me," in the
presence of the Lord. But Jesus said, "Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness". (Mat_3:15)
The baptism of Jesus was evidently a new kind of baptism, one in which the usual
formulas were strangely out of place; and the question naturally arises, Why should
Jesus submit to, and even ask for, a baptism that was so associated with repentance
and sin? Could there be any place for repentance, any room for confession, in the
Sinless One? John felt the anomaly, and so shrank from administering the rite, till
the reply of Jesus put His baptism on different ground-ground altogether clear of any
personal demerit. Jesus asked for baptism not for the washing away of sin, but that
He might "fulfill all righteousness." He was baptized, not for His own sake, but for
the world’s sake. Coming to redeem humanity, He would identify Himself with that
humanity, even the sinful humanity that it was. Son of God, He would become a true
Son of man, that through His redemption all other sons of men might become true
sons of God. Bearing the sins of many, taking away the sin of the world, that heavy
burden lay at His heart from the first; He could not lay it down until He left it nailed
to His cross. Himself knowing no sin, He yet becomes the Sin-offering, and is
"numbered among the transgressors." And as Jesus went to the cross and into the
grave mediatorially, as Humanity’s Son, so Jesus now passes into the baptismal
waters mediatorially, repenting for that world whose heart is still hard, and whose
eyes are dry of godly tears, and confessing the sin which He in love has made His
own, the "sin of the world," the sin He has come to make atonement for and to bear
away.
Such is the meaning of the Jordan baptism, in which Jesus puts the stamp of Divinity
upon John’s mission, while John bears witness to the sinlessness of Jesus. But a
Higher Witness came than even that of John; for no sooner was the rite
administered, and the river-bank regained, than the heavens were opened, and the
Spirit of God, in the form of a fiery dove, descended and alighted on the head of
Jesus; while a Voice out of the Unseen proclaimed, "This is My beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased." And so the Son of man receives the heavenly, as well as the
earthly baptism. Baptized with water, He is new baptized with the Holy Ghost and
with fire, and anointed with the unction of the Holy One. But why should the Holy
Spirit descend upon Jesus in the form of a dove, and afterwards upon the disciples in
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25. the form of cloven tongues of fire? We can understand the symbolism of the cloven
tongues; for was not their mission to preach and teach, spreading and establishing
the kingdom by a consecrated speech-the Divine word carried forward by the human
voice? What, then, is the meaning of the dove-form? Does it refer to the dove of the
Old Dispensation, which bearing the olive-leaf in its mouth, preached its Gospel to
the dwellers in the ark, telling of the abatement of the angry waters, and of a
salvation that was near? And was not Jesus a heavenly Dove, bearing to the world the
olive-branch of reconciliation and of peace, proclaiming the fuller, wider Gospel of
mercy and of love? The supposition, at any rate, is a possible one; while the, words of
Jesus would almost make it a probable one; for speaking of this same baptism of the
Spirit, He says-and in His words we can hear the beat and whir of dove-wings-"He
anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release
to the captives to set at liberty them that are bruised." (Luk_4:18)
The interview between Jesus and John was but brief, and in all probability final. They
spend the following night near to each other, but apart. The day after, John sees
Jesus walking, but the narrative would imply that they did not meet. John only
points to Him and says, "Behold the Lamb of God; which taketh away the sin of the
world"; and they part, each to follow his separate path, and to accomplish his
separate mission.
"The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Such was John’s
testimony to Jesus, in the moment of his clearest illumination. He saw in Jesus, not
as one learned writer would have us suppose, the sheep of David’s pastoral, its life
encircled with green pastures and still waters-not this, but a lamb, "the lamb of God,"
the Paschal Lamb, led all uncomplaining to the slaughter, and by its death bearing
away sin-not either the sin of a year or the sin of a race, but "the sin of the world."
Never had prophet so prophesied before; never had mortal eye seen so clearly and so
deeply into God’s great mystery of mercy. How, then, can we explain that mood of
disappointment and of doubt which afterwards fell upon John? What does it mean
that from his prison he should send two of his disciples to Jesus with the strange
question, "Art Thou He that cometh, or look we for another?". (Luk_7:19) John is
evidently disappointed-yes, and dejected too; and, the Elias still, Herod’s prison is to
him the juniper of the desert. He thought the Christ would be one like unto himself,
crying in the wilderness, but with a louder voice and more penetrating accent. He
would be some ardent Reformer, with axe in hand, or fan, and with baptism of fire.
But lo, Jesus comes so different from his thought-with no axe in hand that he can
see, with no baptism of fire that he can hear of, a Sower rather than a Winnower,
scattering thoughts, principles, beatitudes, and parables, telling not so much of "the
wrath to come" as of the love that is already come, if men will but repent and receive
it-that John is fairly perplexed and actually sends to Jesus for some word that shall
be a solvent for his doubts.
It only shows how this Elias, too, was a man of like passions with ourselves, and that
even prophet’s eyes were sometimes dim, reading God’s purposes with a blurred
vision. Jesus returns a singular answer. He says neither Yes nor No; but He goes out
and works His accustomed miracles, and then dismisses the two disciples with the
message, "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that
the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are
raised, to the poor the Gospel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be
offended in Me." These words are in part a quotation from John’s favorite prophet,
Isaiah, who emphasized as no other prophet did the evangelistic character of Christ’s
mission-which characteristic John seems to have overlooked. In his thought the
Christ was Judge, the great Refiner, sifting the base from the pure, and casting it into
some Gehenna of burnings. But Jesus reminds John that mercy is before and above
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26. judgment; that He has come, "not to condemn the world," but to save it, and to save
it, not by reiterations of the law, but by a manifestation of love. Ebal and Sinai have
had their word; now Gerizim and Calvary must speak.
And so this greatest of the prophets was but human, and therefore fallible. He saw
the Christ, no longer afar off, but near-yea, present; but he saw in part, and he
prophesied in part. He did not see the whole Christ, or grasp the full purport of His
mission. He stood on the threshold of the kingdom; but the least of those who should
pass within that kingdom should stand on a higher vantage-ground, and so be
greater than he. Indeed, it seems scarcely possible that John could have fully
understood Jesus; the two were so entirely different. In dress, in address, in mode of
life, in thought, the two were exact opposites. John occupies the border-region
between the Old and the New; and though his life appears in the New, he himself
belongs rather to the Old Dispensation. His accent is Mosaic, his message a
tritonomy, a third giving of the law. When asked the all-important question, "What
shall we do?" John laid stress on works of charity, and by his metaphor of the two
coats he showed that men should endeavor to equalize their mercies. And when
Publicans and soldiers ask the same question John gives a sort of transcript of the old
tables, striking the negatives of duty: "Extort no more than that which is appointed
you"; "Do violence to no man." Jesus would have answered in the simple positive that
covered all classes and all cases alike: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." But
such was the difference between the Old and the New: the one said, "Do, and thou
shalt live"; the other said, "Live, and thou shalt do." The voice of John awoke the
conscience, but he could not give it rest. He was the preparer of the way; Jesus was
the Way, as He was the Truth and the Life. John was the Voice; Jesus was the Word.
John must "decrease" and disappear; Jesus must "increase," filling all times and all
climes with His glorious, abiding presence.
But the mission of John is drawing to a close and dark clouds are gathering in the
west. The popular idol still, a hostile current has set against him. The Pharisees,
unforgetting and unforgiving, are deadly bitter, creeping across his path, and hissing
out their "Devil"; while Herod, who in his better moods had invited the Baptist to his
palace, now casts him into prison. He will silence the voice he has failed to bribe, the
voice that beat against the chambers of his revelry, like a strange midnight gust, and
that set him trembling like an aspen. We need not linger over the last sad tragedy-
how the royal birthday was kept, with a banquet to the State officials; how the
courtesan daughter of Herodias came in and danced before the guests; and how the
half-drunken Herod swore a rash oath, that he would give her anything she might
ask, up to the half of his kingdom. Herodias knew well what wine and passion would
do for Herod. She even guessed his promise beforehand, and had given full directions
to her daughter; and soon as the rash oath had fallen from his lips-before he could
recall or change his words-sharp and quick the request is made, "Give me here John
Baptist’s head in a charger." There is a momentary conflict, and Herod gives the
fearful word. The head of John is brought into the banquet-hall before the assembled
guests-the long flowing locks, the eyes that even in death seemed to sparkle with the
fire of God; the lips sacred to purity and truth, the lips that could not gloss a sin, even
the sin of a Herod. Yes; it is there, the head of John the Baptist. The courtiers see it,
and smile; Herod sees it, but does not smile. That face haunts him; he never forgets
it. The dead prophet lives still, and becomes to Herod another conscience.
"And she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came, and took up the corpse,
and buried him; and they went and told Jesus". (Mat_14:11-12) Such is the finis to a
consecrated life, and such the work achieved by one man, in a ministry that was only
counted by months. Shall not this be his epitaph, recording his faithfulness and zeal,
and at the same time rebuking our aimlessness and sloth?-
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27. "He liveth long who liveth well; All other life is short and vain: He liveth longest
who can tell Of living most for heavenly gain."
2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and
Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of
Zechariah in the wilderness.
BARNES, "Annas and Caiaphas being highpriests - There was, properly
speaking, but one high priest of the Jews; yet the name of high priest continued to be
given to those who had been in that office, and especially when they still possessed
some civil office after they had left the high priesthood. In this case it appears that
“Caiapas” was high priest, and Annas “had been,” but had been dismissed from the
office. It is highly probable that he still held an office under the Romans, and was
perhaps president of the Sanhedrin. He is mentioned before Caiaphas because he was
the father-in-law to Caiaphas, and probably was the eldest, and had been longest in
office. Instances similar to this may be found in Josephus.
There is one remark to be made here about the manner in which the gospels are
written. They have every mark of openness and honesty. An impostor does not
mention names, and times, and places particularly. If he did, it would be easy to
ascertain that he was an impostor. But the sacred writers describe objects and people
as if they were perfectly familiar with them. They never appear to be “guarding”
themselves. They speak of things most minutely. If, therefore, they had been
impostors, it would have been easy to detect them. If, for example, John did not
begin to preach in the 15th year of Tiberius - if Philip was “not” tetrarch of Iturea - if
Pontius Pilate was not governor of Judea, how easy would it have been to detect them
in falsehood! Yet it was never done. Nay, we have evidence of that age, in Josephus,
that these descriptions are strictly true; and, consequently, the gospels must have
been written by people who were personally acquainted with what they wrote, who
were not impostors, and who were “honest” people. If they were “honest,” then the
Christian religion is true.
CLARKE, "Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests - Caiaphas was the
son-in-law of Annas or Ananias, and it is supposed that they exercised the high
priest’s office by turns. It is likely that Annas only was considered as high priest; and
that Caiaphas was what the Hebrews termed ‫משנה‬ ‫כהן‬ cohen mishneh, or ‫כהנים‬ ‫סגן‬ sagan
cohanim, the high priest’s deputy, or ruler of the temple. See the note on Mat_2:4,
and on Joh_18:13.
The facts which St. Luke mentions here tend much to confirm the truth of the
evangelical history. Christianity differs widely from philosophic system; it is founded
in the goodness and authority of God; and attested by historic facts. It differs also
from popular tradition, which either has had no pure origin, or which is lost in
unknown or fabulous antiquity. It differs also from pagan and Mohammedan
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