Introduction
Last week we spent our time on Luke’s account of John the Baptist’s ministry in the region around the Jordan River. Crowds came out to him in the desert and he preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of their sins. In other words, he told the people that they needed to turn from their sins in repentance and seek God’s forgiveness. And baptism was a sign of God’s willingness to wash away their guilt and to cleanse them from their sin.
And Luke connected what John was doing with what is written in the Old Testament book of Isaiah. John is the voice of one calling in the desert, calling on the people to prepare the way for the Lord by turning from their sins and turning back to God.
And just as God came to his people in the days of Moses to rescue them from their captivity in Egypt and to bring them into the Promised Land of Canaan, and just as God came to his people in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah to rescue them from their exile in Babylon and to bring them back to the Promised Land of Canaan, so God was coming again in the person of his Son to rescue us from this present evil age — which is dominated by sin and Satan and death — and to bring us into the Promised Land of Eternal Life where we will live with God forever in the new heavens and earth.
John was sent to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. And John said that when the Lord comes, he will baptise. But he will baptise, not with water as John did; he will baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire. That is to say, he’ll pour out his Spirit on his people; and it’s the Spirit who enables us to receive the forgiveness of sins, because it’s the Holy Spirit who enables sinners to repent and believe in the Saviour. But he will also pour out the fire of judgment on his enemies: all those who refuse to believe in him. He will punish them forever for all that they have done wrong.
That’s what we were thinking about last week. Today’s passage is in three parts. In the first part, we have Luke’s account of the Lord’s baptism. In the second part, we have Luke’s version of the Lord’s genealogy or family tree. And in the third part, we have Luke’s account of the Lord’s testing in the wilderness. And the one idea which binds these three parts together is the idea of sonship. When the Lord was baptised, God spoke from heaven and declared him to be God’s Beloved Son. Luke’s version of the Lord’s genealogy traces his family history all the way back to Adam, the son of God. And when he was in the desert, the Lord showed himself to be God’s obedient Son.
And so, these three parts belong together because they’re joined together by the idea of sonship.
Baptism
And so, we read in verse 21 that when all the people were being baptised by John in the River Jordan, Jesus was baptised too. Interestingly, Luke doesn’t say very much about the Lord’s baptism. His baptism is not really the focus of the passage, because the focus of the passage is on what follows, when the Holy Spirit descended on him and the voice of God was heard. But the Lord’s baptism is significant because it shows us his willingness to identify himself with us.
Baptism is for sinners, because baptism speaks to us of God’s willingness to wash away our guilt. But the Lord Jesus Christ was holy. Isn’t that what the angel said about him back in chapter 1? The angel referred to him as ‘the holy one’. And he was holy because from the moment of his conception by the Holy Spirit, he received the Spirit without limit or measure to enable him to be and to do everything necessary to save us. And since he was holy, and never did anything wrong, then he did not need forgiveness. And so, by going out to the River Jordan to be baptised by John, he was identifying himself with us. Though he himself knew no sin, he was willing to be numbered among the transgressors. He was prepared to be counted as a sinner like us. And that’s because he had come to take our place and to bear in his body the punishment we deserve.
But his baptism is also significant, bearing in mind what I said last week about how his coming into the world was the beginning of a new and better exodus. At the time of the original exodus, in the days of Moses, God rescued his people from their slavery in Egypt to bring them into the Promised Land of Canaan. Years later, he rescued his people from exile in Babylon and brought them back to the Promised Land of Canaan. And the coming of the Lord Jesus was the beginning of a new and better exodus, because he came to rescue us from this present evil age and from our spiritual bondage to sin and Satan and death and to lead us into the Promised Land of Eternal Life.
We were thinking about those things last week. But remember what happened immediately after the Israelites were set free? The Egyptians changed their mind: who was going to do all the work now that their slaves had gone? And so, the King sent his soldiers to recapture the Israelites and to bring them back to Egypt. And we read how the Egyptians were coming up behind the Israelites. And standing in the way of the Israelites was the Red Sea, which blocked their path. And it seemed they were done for, because there was no way for them to escape. And that’s when the Lord opened a way for them through the Red Sea. He caused a passageway to appear through the Sea and they were able to cross over to the other side on dry ground.
And in 1 Corinthians 10, the Apostle Paul refers to their passage through the Red Sea as a baptism. It was a baptism, because not only does baptism signify God’s willingness to wash away our guilt, but it also signifies the end of one life and the beginning of a new life. When an adult is convinced and converted to faith in Christ, she’s baptised. And her baptism signifies that her old life of unbelief and sin is over; and she’s beginning a new life of faith and obedience. That’s one of the things baptism signifies. And when the Israelites passed through the waters of the Red Sea, it signified that their old life of sin and misery as slaves in Egypt was over; and they were beginning a new life of faith and obedience with God.
So, that’s what happened when the Israelites left Egypt. As soon as they left Egypt, they were baptised in the Red Sea. And at the beginning of this new and better exodus, the Lord Jesus Christ was baptised to signify how he was leading us from this present evil age — which is destined to perish — into the Promised Land to come in the new heavens and earth where we will live forever. And all who believe in the Lord Jesus are baptised like him, because by believing in the Saviour we have left behind our old life of unbelief and disobedience and we’re beginning a new life with Christ that leads ultimately to eternal life.
But after the Lord’s baptism, and when he was praying, heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. Now, since he’s a spirit, the Holy Spirit is normally invisible. You can’t see him. But he now took on the form or appearance of a dove so that people could see him as he descended on the Lord Jesus. And in this way, he made clear that the Lord Jesus is indeed God’s Spirit-Anointed King, sent to save us from our sin and misery in this world.
And then a voice came from heaven. This is the voice of God, who said to the Lord Jesus:
You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
Genealogy
And I want to go right on in to the next part of today’s passage, because the Lord’s genealogy is, in a sense, a list of God’s sons. This, of course, is the Lord’s human genealogy. The Lord Jesus is God and man in one person. As God, he is the Eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity who is without beginning or end. But when he came into the world as one of us, he was conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit. And so, he has no human father. But he was regarded as Joseph’s son; and this is his human family tree.
Now, if you compare this version of the Lord’s genealogy with Matthew’s version, you’ll notice some differences. For instance, they’re different in length: Matthew has 41 names whereas Luke has 77. One reason for the difference is because Matthew traces the Lord’s descendants as far as Abraham, whereas Luke goes all the way back to Adam in the beginning. But there are other differences as well. For instance, Matthew’s list includes the names of some women, whereas Luke’s does not. And the names from David to the Lord Jesus are quite different: Matthew’s list has the names of the kings of Judah: Solomon and Rehoboam and so on, names which are familiar to us from the Old Testament. Luke, however, doesn’t mention any of them. It’s not clear why Luke does this, although at least one commentator (Edwards) suggests it’s to make clear that the Lord Jesus is David’s true heir to the throne. It’s as if the kingdom was transferred from David straight to the Lord Jesus and we don’t need to worry about those other kings who came between them. They, in a sense, don’t count, because the only ones who really matter are David and the Lord Jesus. However, that’s only a guess.
But the thing I want to focus on is that all the people named here are, in a sense, God’s sons. Adam was the first son of God and all the others were descended from him. And so, they’re all sons of God, because they all come from God. And yet not one of them, apart from the Lord Jesus, could be regarded as well-pleasing in God’s sight.
Think of Adam. He was God’s son in the sense that he came from God. God made him. And God loved him and placed him in the Garden of Eden, where he had everything he wanted. And since God loved him, then when God saw that it wasn’t good for Adam to be on his own, God provided Adam with Eve to be his helper. And God placed the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. And the Tree of Life signified God’s promise to Adam and his descendants of eternal life. You see, while Adam’s life in the world was already very good, God had something even better in mind for Adam and his descendants. He was prepared to give them eternal life in his presence. This too was a sign of God’s love. And the point I’m trying to make is that Adam was God’s beloved son. God was good to him in many ways.
But Adam can’t be described as being well-pleasing in God’s sight, because instead of guarding the Garden, as God commanded him to do, Adam let the serpent into the Garden to tempt them. And instead of obeying God’s command concerning the forbidden fruit, Adam disobeyed the Lord and took the forbidden fruit. And as a result, sin and death came into the world and spread to all people. Whereas Adam was meant to fill the earth with men and women and boys and girls who would reflect the glory of God by doing his will on the earth, Adam filled the earth with sinners. Adam may have been God’s beloved son, but he was a sinner and he filled the earth with more sinners.
In the days of Noah, God sent a flood on the earth to wipe the world clean and to start again. And so, Noah was to be take the place of Adam as the head of the human race. And just as God commanded Adam to be fruitful and to fill the earth, so he gave the same command to Noah. But it soon became clear that Noah was a sinner just like Adam. And since he was a sinner, he filled the earth with more sinners.
Years later, God revealed himself to Abraham. And God chose Abraham and his descendants and promised to bless them. And while Abraham believed God’s promises, which was good, nevertheless Abraham was also a sinner and his children were sinners too.
When we get to David, he was God’s great king. God chose him and God was with him and God helped him to fight against his enemies and to defeat Goliath and the other Philstines. But David too was a sinner who sinned against the Lord terribly by taking Uriah’s wife and by taking Uriah’s life.
And though we may not know anything about most of the other people in this list of names, we know that they all have this in common: everyone of them was a sinner. While they may have been loved by God, they were not well-pleasing in God’s sight, because all of them were sinners who sinned against the Lord continually in thought and word and deed.
All of them were the same — apart from one: the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only one who is both God’s Beloved Son and well-pleasing in God’s sight. He’s well-pleasing in God’s sight, because he never did anything wrong and he always did what was right in the sight of God.
And so, that’s one of the points we can make about the Lord’s genealogy. All the rest of them were sinners and therefore they were not well-pleasing in God’s sight. Only the Lord Jesus was God’s beloved and well-pleasing Son.
And this is related to our salvation, because what happened whenever Adam disobeyed the Lord? He was sent out of the presence of the Lord in the Garden of Eden. And we were sent out with him, because what happened to Adam in the Garden of Eden affects us all. God held out to Adam the hope of everlasting life in the presence of God. This promise was for Adam himself and for all his descendants including us. But because of Adam’s sin, he forfeited the right to eternal life in the presence of God. He forfeited that right for himself and for us. And so, because of Adam’s sin in the beginning, and because of our own sins, we are rightfully excluded from God’s presence.
And yet the good news of the gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world as one of us. And as one of us, he remained obedient to God throughout his life on earth, even to the point of death on the cross in obedience to his Father’s will. And because of his perfect obedience as one of us and on our behalf, he was won for us the right to eternal life in the presence of God. Though we deserve to be sent out of God’s presence forever, because we’re sinners who disobey God continually, we can look forward to coming into God’s presence in the Promised Land of Eternal Life. We can look forward to it, because Christ — God’s one and only obedient Son — has obtained for us the right to eternal life. And he gives the right to eternal life to all who believe in him and who trust in him for salvation.
Testing
And that takes us to the third part of today’s passage, where the Devil tempted the Lord to disobey God. But each time the Devil tempted him, the Lord remained obedient. And so, he showed himself to be God’s obedient Son.
Luke tells us in verse 1 of chapter 4 that the Lord Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, where he had been baptised. And he was led by the Spirit in the desert. And there, in the desert, he was tempted by the Devil for forty days. Being tempted or tested in the desert for 40 days recalls the way the people of Israel were tempted or tested in the wilderness for 40 years. The difference, of course, is that whereas the Israelites were unfaithful, the Lord Jesus remained faithful to his Father in heaven.
Think of the unfaithfulness of the Israelites. After crossing the Red Sea, they began to grumble and complain because their water had run out and the only available water in the desert was bitter and therefore undrinkable. But instead of trusting the Lord to provide for them, they grumbled and complained. But God, who is gracious and merciful, made the bitter water fit to drink. And on another occasion when they complained there was no water, he brought water from a rock from them to drink.
Next their food ran out. But instead of trusting in the Lord to provide for them, they grumbled and complained. But God, who is gracious and merciful, provided them with manna to eat. And instead of listening to God’s word, some of them tried to store it overnight, when God told them not to; and some of the went out on the Sabbath Day to look for mana, when God told them not to. And so, not only did they not trust the Lord, but they did not obey his word either.
When they came to Mount Sinai, and Moses had gone up the mountain to meet the Lord, they made a golden idol for themselves and bowed down to worship it. Instead of worshipping the Lord, who brought them out of Egypt, they worshipped a golden calf which they made with their own hands.
And when God brought them to the edge of the Promised Land, they refused to go into the land, even though God promised to give it to them. Instead they talked about returning to Egypt. And so, they did not believe. And because they did not believe, God said they would remain in the wilderness until that whole generation died. Their children could enter the Promised Land, but they would not, because they did not trust and obey the Lord their God. And throughout the forty years, they continued to doubt God and to disobey him. Whenever they were tested, they responded with unbelief and disobedience.
But now, at the beginning of this new and better exodus, the Lord Jesus Christ showed himself to be God’s obedient Son. When he was tested, he responded with faith and obedience. He trusted his Father in heaven and obeyed God’s word every time.
And the temptations he faced match the temptations which the Israelites faced. And so, we’re told in verse 2 that he ate nothing durning the forty days so that he was hungry. He was hungry, just as the Israelites were hungry. And that’s when the Devil spoke to him and said to him: ‘If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.’ The Devil isn’t denying that the Lord Jesus is God’s Son. I think he’s saying: ‘Since you’re the Son of God, then tell this stone to become bread.’ And the Lord replied by quoting from Deuteronomy 8 where it says that man does not live on bread alone. And if you’re familiar with the verse, you’ll know that it continued: man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. The point Moses makes in Deuteronomy 8 is that God was teaching the people in the wilderness to rely, not so much on bread, but to rely on the Lord and on his word. Trust and obey what God says, because he loves his people and will provide them with what they need. They weren’t to rely on the manna. They were to rely on the Lord and on the promises and commands which come from his mouth. That’s what God was trying to teach the Israelites. However, whereas they didn’t rely on God’s word, the Lord Jesus was prepared to do only what God commanded him to do. And since God had not commanded him to turn stones into bread, then he would not do it.
Then the Devil led him to a high place and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. And the Devil offered to give all of them to the Lord Jesus if only the Lord Jesus will worship the Devil. And so, this recalls what happened at Mount Sinia when the Israelites bowed down and worshipped the golden calf. But the Lord Jesus is God’s obedient Son. And so, he refused to do what the Devil suggested, because it’s written in the book of Deuteronomy that we’re to worship the Lord our God and serve him only. Whereas the Israelites disobeyed God by worshipping an idol, the Lord Jesus remained obedient and he would not worship the Devil.
The Devil then led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. And the Devil suggested that he should throw himself off the temple, because hadn’t God said in his word that he would send his angels to guard the Lord Jesus? The Devil was quoting from Psalm 91. And so, he’s asking the Lord Jesus to put his Father in heaven to the test. God has said he’ll protect you; let’s see if it’s true. Will he or won’t he? And in Exodus 17 we read of the time when there was no water and it says that the Israelites tested the Lord. They tested his ability to help them in order to decide whether or not they should trust and obey him. But putting the Lord God Almighty to the test is a wicked thing to do, because who are we to test the Lord? But that’s what the Israelites did in the wilderness. And that’s what the Devil wanted the Lord Jesus to do: God has said in his word that he will protect you. Let’s see if he will keep his word. And the Lord replied by quoting from Deuteronomy 6 that we’re not to put the Lord our God to the test.
The Devil tempted the Lord Jesus with the same kinds of temptations which the Israelites faced in the wilderness. But whereas the Israelites gave in and sinned, the Lord Jesus remained obedient to his Father in heaven. He did not sin. And so, he proved himself to be God’s obedient Son. And he shares his perfect obedience, his perfect righteousness, with all who trust in him for salvation and for peace with God. We are like the Israelites and we’re like David and we’re like Abraham and we’re like Noah and we’re like Adam and we’re like all the other people listed in the genealogy. All of us are sinners who sin against the Lord continually. We have disobeyed the Lord throughout our lives. When we’re tempted, we are sinfully inclined to give in to it. But when we trust in the Lord Jesus, God forgives us all that we have ever done wrong and he covers us in the perfect obedience of the Saviour. His perfect obedience covers up all our faults and failings and sins and shortcomings. His perfect obedience covers them all up. And so, when we come before God’s judgment seat, he won’t see our sins; all he’ll see is Christ’s perfect obedience. He’ll look on that and he’ll be pleased by what he sees. And so, thanks be to God for Jesus Christ our Saviour, who is God’s one and only beloved and well-pleasing Son, who gave up his life to pay for what we have done wrong and who covers us in his perfect obedience so that God will be well-pleased with us.
Conclusion
And the final thing to say is this. When I was growing up, people would say that we can learn from this passage how to stand up to Satan’s temptations. Whenever we’re tempted to sin, all we need to do is remind ourselves of what the Bible says. Isn’t that what the Lord Jesus did? When he was tempted, he quoted from the Bible. And that’s what we must do to. Take out the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and you can defend yourself from Satan’s temptations.
But then as I grew older, I discovered that knowing the word of God did not mean I would stand up to Satan’s temptations. Often I would know the right thing to do, according to God’s word, but I would still do the wrong thing. I would know what God wants me to do, but I wouldn’t do it. Didn’t the Apostle Paul say the same thing? What I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing. And so, we know what’s good and right and what God’s will is. We even want to do it. But we don’t do it. And this is because we’re sinfully inclined to disobey the Lord.
But the good news is that God’s one and only beloved and well-pleasing Son gives us his Spirit; and the Holy Spirit helps us not only to know God’s will, but to do God’s will. We’re to look to him everyday for the help and strength we need to stand firm against the Devil’s temptations. And when we do give in, which we will, because we’re sinners, we know that there’s forgiveness for all who trust in God’s one and only beloved and well-pleasing Son.
Sermons and Stuff 