John Baptist, at first, was unwilling to baptise Jesus as he recognised that He, being sinless, had no sins to confess. Following His baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ William Barclay points out, ‘The voice which Jesus heard at the baptism is of supreme importance … That sentence is composed of two quotations. "This is my beloved Son", is a quotation from Psalm 2:7. Every Jew accepted that that Psalm as a description of the Messiah, the mighty King of God who was to come. "With whom I am well pleased" is a quotation from Isaiah 42:1, which is a description of the Suffering Servant …’ In a later chapter, the prophet Isaiah will reveal more about this ‘suffering Servant’ – ‘by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.’ [Isaiah 53:11]. This takes us to the cross!
‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’ -
‘It is another who bears witness concerning me’ -
In legal matters, the principle set down in Deuteronomy is well accepted -
‘Jesus said to them, “Come and dine” -
Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911 – 2004) was the 40th president of the United States from
1981 to 1989. In his own autobiography, Reagan shared his early fascination with
how nature points beyond itself to Almighty God. At age five, his family rented a
house in Galesburg, Illinois, and the attic contained “a huge collection of birds’
eggs and butterflies enclosed in glass cases.” Reagan recalled how he “escaped for
hours at a time into the attic, marvelling at the rich colours of the eggs and the
intricate and fragile wings of the butterflies.” He said “the experience left me
with a reverence for the handiwork of God that never left me.” Following his death,
they found among his personal papers, a set of ‘one-
Having been rescued from certain death by the Roman commander in Jerusalem, the apostle Paul was allowed to speak to the frenzied Jewish mob, who, just moments earlier, had attempted to tear him to pieces. He spoke to them in Hebrew. This surprised the crowd who’d assumed he was a Greek. A noticeable stillness prevailed, and the mob listened well as Paul gave his personal testimony. Their attentiveness, however, was short lived, and soon they cried out, “Away with such a fellow … he is not fit to live!” What was it that caused this sudden outburst? Paul had just told them that Jesus had commissioned him, “TO WITNESS TO THE GENTILES.” That God should bless the Gentiles with salvation, was a step too far for these Jews who prided themselves in being the CHOSEN people. They overlooked the fact that it had always been God’s intention to bless the Gentile nations – See Genesis 12:3
‘And they listened to him until this word’ -
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Just as the Israelites were commanded to keep the weekly Sabbath, so too, the cultivated
land was to enjoy a sabbatical year of rest. There was to no sowing or harvesting
during this twelve month period. What then were they to eat during this seventh year
and the year following while they waited for the eighth-
“When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath
to the LORD” -
‘‘It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness’ -
Much is expected from those who have the rule over us. Rulers, because of their high station in society, should stand out as beacons of respectability. The Scriptures give many examples of those who fall well short of this expectation. Herod ‘put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem ... from two years old and under’. Felix, ‘hoped that money would be given him by Paul, that he might release him’, and the Roman governor at Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate, in spite of knowing that Jesus was innocent and had been handed over to him out of ‘envy’, wilts under pressure and complies with the request of the mob, to crucify Jesus. We do well to bear in mind, ‘It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes’ – Psalm 118:9