We need not spend time upon the question which we have no materials for
answering, viz.--What was the 'objective material reality' here? We do
not know enough about what constitutes 'objective material reality,' nor
about what are the laws of prophetic ecstasy and vision, to discuss such
a question as that. Nor is there any need to moot it. It does not matter
one rush whether bystanders would have seen anything or not. It does not
matter in the least whether there was any actual excitation of auditory
or visual nerves. It does not matter whether there was anything which
people are contented to call _material_--a word which covers a depth of
ignorance. Enough for us that this was no fancy, born in a man's brain,
but an actual manifestation, whether through sense or apart from sense,
to consciousness, of a divine outpouring and communication. Enough for
us that the voice which spoke was God's, and that that which descended
was the Spirit of God. As to all other questions, they may be amusing
and interesting, but they are insoluble, and therefore unimportant.
Well, then, taking that point of view, the next question that arises is
as to the purpose of this descent of the Spirit. Plainly, as I have
said, it was the coronation and anointing of the Monarch. But a man is
king before he is crowned. Coronation is the consequence and not the
cause of his royalty. It is but the official and solemn announcement of
a previous fact. No additional power, no fresh authority, comes of the
crowning. And so the first purpose of this great fact is distinctly
stated, in John's Gospel, as having been the solemn, divine pointing out
of Messiah to the Baptist primarily, but in order that he might bear
witness of Him to others. The words which follow are a commentary on,
and part of the explanation of, the descent of the Holy Spirit. They
are God's finger, pointing to Jesus and saying, 'Arise, anoint Him, for
this is He.'
But it must be remembered always that this was neither the beginning of
that divine Spirit's operation upon Jesus, nor the beginning of His
Messianic nature and consciousness; nor the beginning of His Sonship.
That day was not in deepest truth the 'day' on which the Son was
'begotten.' Before the baptism there was the consciousness of
Messiahship witnessed in these words, so singularly compacted of
humility and authority: 'Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us
to fulfil all righteousness'; and before His baptism, and even before
His birth, that divine Spirit wrought His manhood, and ere the heavens
opened, or the dove fluttered down upon His head, He from everlasting
was the Son in the bosom of the Father.
So we see here, I think, if we follow the lead of the Scriptural
teaching, not the beginning of powers or communications, but an advance
in these. Christ's baptism was an epoch in His human development,
inasmuch as it was the public official assumption of His Messianic
office. He came from out of the sheltering obscurity of the Galilean
village nestling among its hills. He had now put His foot upon the path,
set with knives and hot ploughshares, along which He had to walk to the
Cross. Inasmuch as it was an epoch in His development (for His manhood
was capable of growth and maturing), and inasmuch as new tasks needed
increase of gifts, and inasmuch as His man's nature was subject to the
conditions of time, and capable of expansion and increase of capacity,
therefore, I believe that when Christ rose from the waters of baptism,
no new gift indeed was His, but such an advance in the communication to
His manhood of the sustaining Spirit, as fully equipped Him for the new
calls of His Messianic work.
His manhood needed, as ours does, the continual communication of the
divine Spirit, and His manhood, because it was sinless, was capable of a
complete reception of that Spirit. Sinless though He knew Himself to be,
as His own words declare, He yet bowed His head to the baptism of
repentance, which He needed not for Himself, just as He afterwards bowed
His head to a darker, a sadder baptism, which He had to be baptized
with, though it likewise He needed not for Himself, because in both the
one and the other He would make Himself one with His brethren. The
Spirit of God had shaped His manhood ere His birth. The Spirit of God
had been abiding in His holy infancy and growing youth, but now it came
in larger measure for new needs and His Messiah's work.
So, dear friends, we see in Christ, baptized with the Spirit of God, the
realised ideal of manhood, ever dependent, ever needing for its purity
that holy influence, and receiving at every pore that divine gift. What
a contrast to our limited partial reception, broken and interrupted so
often! All the doors that are barred in our hearts by sin, all the
windows that are darkened in our souls by vice and self, in Him stood
open to the day, and brilliantly receptive of the illumination. And so
'the Father giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.'
Notice, too, the meaning of the symbol. Think of what John, with his
incomplete though not inaccurate conceptions, expected in the Messiah
whom he proclaimed. To him the coming of the King was first and chiefly
a coming to judgment. There is nothing more remarkable than the aspect
of terror which drapes the old hope of Israel as it comes from John's
lips. He believes that the King is coming, that His coming is to be an
awful thing. Judgment is to go before Him, He bears 'His fan in His
hand,' and kindles 'unquenchable fire,' into which the leafy trees that
have no fruit upon them are to be flung, there to shrivel and crackle
and disappear. This is what he expects at the worst, and at the best a
baptism in the Holy Ghost, from Messiah's hands, which, however, is
likewise to be fiery even whilst it quickens, and searching and
destructive even whilst it gladdens. When, then, his carpenter cousin is
designated as Messiah, John sees two wonders: that this is the Christ,
and that the Spirit which he had thought of as searching and consuming,
should come fluttering down upon His head in the likeness of a dove. Old
Testament symbols and natural poetry unite in giving felicity to that
emblem. 'The Spirit of God brooded on the face of the deep,' says
Genesis; and the word employed describes accurately the action of the
mother-bird, with her soft breast and outstretched wings quickening the
life that lies beneath. The dove was pure and allowed for sacrifice. All
nations have made it the symbol of meekness, gentleness, faithfulness.
All these associations determined the form which the descending
Benediction took.
What then does it proclaim as to the character of the King? Purity is
the very foundation of His royalty. Meekness and gentleness are the very
weapons of His conquest and the sceptre of His rule. The dove will
outfly all Rome's eagles and all rapacious, unclean feeders, with their
strong wings, and curved talons, and sharp beaks. The lesson as to the
true nature of the true Kingdom, which was taught of old when the
prophet said 'Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, thy King cometh unto
thee, meek, riding on an ass,' and not upon the warhorse of secular
force; the lesson which was taught unwittingly, as to the true nature of
the true Kingdom, when the scoffers, speaking a deeper truth than they
understood, put upon His brow the crown of thorns, and forced into His
hand the sceptre of reed, was taught here--the lesson that meekness
conquers, and that His kingdom is founded in suffering, and wielded in
gentleness. The lesson of the ancient psalm, which in rapture of
prophetic vision beheld the coming of the Bridegroom, and said with
strange blending of images of war and of peace: 'Thine arrows are sharp
in the heart of the King's enemies; in Thy majesty ride prosperously,
because of meekness; and Thy right hand shall teach Thee terrible
things';--that same lesson was taught when the King was crowned, and in
the day of His coronation, that which fell upon His bowed, glistening
head, was the Dove from Heaven, the proclamation that meekness and
gentleness are the garment of Omnipotence.
II. Consider this incident as showing us the gifts of the King to His
subjects.
Christ has nothing which He keeps to Himself. Christ received the Spirit
that He might diffuse it through the whole world. Whatsoever He has
received of the Father He gives unto us. This conception of the gift
that Christ has to bestow upon men, as being the very life-spirit that
dwelt in His manhood, and made and kept it pure, is the highest thought
that we can have of what the gospel does for us. You do not understand
its meaning if you content yourself with thinking of it as simply the
means of escape from wrath. You do not understand its meaning--though,
blessed be God! that is the first part of its mercy to us--if you think
of Christ's gift as only pardon by means of His sacrifice on the Cross.
We must rise higher than that; we must feel, if we would understand the
'unspeakable gift,' that it is the gift of Himself to dwell within us by
His Spirit as the very spirit of our lives. Assimilation by reception of
a supernatural life from Him, is the teaching of Pentecost. Christ is
our life; 'the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us
free from the law of sin and death.'
Therefore, all Christian men are spoken of in the New Testament in the
same language which is used in reference to their Master. Is He the Son
of God? They are sons through Him. Is He the High Priest? They are
priests unto God. Is He the Light of the World? They are, in their
places, kindled and derived lights. Is He the Christ, the Messias, the
Anointed? 'Ye have an unction from the Holy One,' and He hath anointed
us in Him. So that it is no arrogance, though it may be a questionably
wise form of expression, when we say that the object of Christ's coming
is to make us all Christs, God's anointed, and to make us so because He
Himself in His Spirit dwells in us.
Christ can do that. He can give this Spirit. That is the very thing that
all other teachers cannot do. They can teach tricks of imitation, they
can galvanise men, for a little while, into some kind of copy of their
characteristics. They can give them the principles which they themselves
have been living on, but to repeat and to continue the spirit of the
Teacher is the very thing that cannot be done. 'Let a double portion
fall upon me,' said Elisha; and Elijah, knowing the limits of the human
relationship between master and disciple, could only shake his head in
doubt and say, 'Thou askest a hard thing; perhaps thou wilt get it,
perhaps thou wilt not, but it will not be I that will give it you.' But
Christ says: 'I give My Spirit to you all.'
And let us remember, too, how full of blessed teaching, of rebuke, and
of instruction that symbol is, in reference to ourselves. To all of us
there is offered, if we like to have it, this dove-like Spirit. What
does that mean? Let us for a moment dwell upon the various uses of the
emblem, for they all carry important lessons. Our hearts are like that
wild chaos which preceded the present ordered state of things. And over
the seething darkness, full of all formless horrors and half-discerned
dead monstrosities, over all the chaos of disordered wills, rebellious
appetites, stinging conscience, darkened perceptions, there will come,
if we will (and we may will by His help, which is never far away from
us), gently, but quickening us into life and reducing confusion into
order, and flooding our cloudy night with light, that divine Spirit. The
dove that brooded over Chaos and made it Cosmos, will brood over your
nature, and re-create the whole. 'If any man be in Christ, he is a new
creation.' 'The old things are passed away.' Creator Spirit! create a
clean heart in me.
And then again let me remind you that this emblem brings to us another
cognate and yet distinct hope, inasmuch as the dove was the emblem of
purity and clean for sacrifice. This is the characteristic of the
scriptural doctrine of inspiration, by which it is distinguished from
all heathen and secular conceptions of a similar sort, viz., that it
puts the moral in the foreground, and that the Spirit, which is the
Spirit of truth, and of wisdom and of power, is first and foremost the
Spirit of holiness. So that if a man is not clean, no matter what his
gifts, no matter what his wisdom, no matter what his intellectual force,
no matter what his supernatural and miraculous power, he has not the
Spirit of God in him. The Dove comes, and where it comes there is peace,
there is purity, there is sacrifice. If any man have not the Spirit of
holiness he is none of Christ's.
So, brethren, remember that not in shining faculty, not in piercing
vision into mystery, not in the eloquence of honeyed tongue, nor the
power of a swift hand, not in any of the lesser and subordinate gifts
which the world exclusively honours as inspiration, is the power of the
indwelling Spirit to be manifested. If the Spirit of God is in you, it
is making you clean.
Still further, remember how, as for the King so for His subjects, the
Dove that crowns Him and that dwells in them is the Spirit of meekness
and of gentleness. That is the true force. Light, which is silent, is
mightier than all lightnings. The Spirit, which is the 'Spirit of love,'
is therefore 'the Spirit of power.' The true type of Christian
character, which the gospel has brought into being, looks modest,
inconspicuous and humdrum, by the side of the more brilliant and vulgar
beauties of the world's ideals. Just as the iridescent hues on a dove's
neck, and the quiet blue of its plumage, look modest and Quaker-like
beside gaudy parroquets and other bedizened birds, so the Christian type
of character, patient, meek, gentle, not self-asserting, seems pale and
sober-tinted beside the world's heroes. But gentleness is the mightiest
and will conquer at last. For Christ and Christ's followers go forth,
through universal love to universal power.
And the last suggestion that I offer to you about the significance of
this symbol is one that I freely admit to be fanciful, and yet it
strikes me as being very beautiful. Noah's dove came back to the ark
with one leaf in his beak. That was the prophecy and the foretaste of a
whole world of beauty and of verdure. The dove that comes to us, bearing
with it some leaf plucked from the tree of life, which is in the midst
of the paradise of God, is the earnest of our inheritance until the day
of redemption. All the gifts of that divine Spirit, gifts of holiness,
of gentleness, of wisdom, of truth--all these are forecasts and
anticipations of the perfectness of the heavens. To us, sailing over a
dismal sea, the Spirit comes bearing with it a message that tells us of
the far-off land and the fair garden of God in which the blessed shall
walk.
Dear friends, remember the one condition on which is suspended our
possession of the Spirit of God. It is that we shall have Christ for our
very own by our humble faith. If we are trusting in Him, He will come
and put His Spirit within our hearts. Without Him these hearts are cages
of unclean and hateful birds. But the meek presence of the dove of God
will drive out the obscene, twilight-loving creatures that build and
scream there, and will fill our hearts with the tranquillity, the
purity, the gentleness, the hope, which are 'the fruit of the Spirit.'