Continuing the meditation from earlier, we will read this evening from the Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 3, verses 21 and 22; and Chapter 4.
Now it came to pass, when all the people were baptized, that, Jesus also having been baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened,
and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon Him, and a voice came out of heaven, Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased.— Luke 3:21-22
And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led in the Spirit in the wilderness
during forty days, being tempted of the devil. And He did eat nothing in those days: and when they were completed, He hungered.And the devil said unto Him, If Thou art the Son of God, command this stone that it become bread.
And Jesus answered unto him, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone.
And he led Him up, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
And the devil said unto Him, To Thee will I give all this authority, and the glory of them: for it hath been delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If Thou therefore wilt worship before me, it shall all be Thine.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.
And he led Him to Jerusalem, and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said unto Him, If Thou art the Son of God, cast Thyself down from hence: for it is written,
He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee, to guard Thee:
and, On their hands they shall bear Thee up,
Lest haply Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God.
And when the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from Him for a season.
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and a fame went out concerning Him through all the region round about.
— Luke 4:1-14
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me.— Luke 4:18
So we continue our consideration, as we trust, with the Lord’s help, of this matter of the divine anointing.
Jesus spent six weeks in the wilderness, fasting. We are not told what He was doing throughout those more than a thousand hours. Well, no doubt much of the time was spent in prayer. There must have been much thought, meditation, and adjustment to what was involved in that anointing.
We might spend a little while trying to get inside that tremendously significant time. It is amazing, perhaps, to make deductions, but I think we shall not be far from the truth in the conclusions to which we may come.
We begin by recognizing that there was a background consciousness in Christ of being here in this world as a Man of destiny, as One with Whom tremendous issues were bound up in the purpose and counsels of God.
He had a peculiar sense in Him of His relationship with God as His Father. That had been with Him, it seems, from at least His boyhood. And there was in Him a spirit, a purpose, of a mission—just as I have said, a tremendous destiny.
Strange and uncommon forces had been at work in His spirit through His life: an urge, an intelligence, a deep-down sense of mighty things being bound up with His being in this world. That was the background consciousness of this particular time in the wilderness.
Then there had arrived the day when He knew in His spirit, by the same urge and constraint, that a crisis step had to be taken. That movement of the Spirit sent Him to the Jordan.
Undoubtedly He was being guided by the Spirit in His movements, because those movements so exactly corresponded with many Scriptures of the Old Testament which had to be fulfilled. His movements had in them many prophecies.
We know how Matthew was able to discern that. How frequently Matthew says, “that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” Here he is, so to speak, marking off the Scriptures which were being fulfilled in these various movements, activities, and utterances of the Lord Jesus.
We are on safe ground when we say that the Spirit Who had given those Scriptures was guiding Him into those Scriptures—or into their fulfilment—and that His movements were all according to plan, all according to the programme, all according to the Word.
In the wilderness it comes out so clearly that it is the Word which is governing. He is moving in accordance with the Word, in fulfilment of the Scripture. With the consciousness that this day had arrived to take the great precipitate step, He went to Jordan, brushed aside John’s demurrer, and insisted upon being baptized.
This has as its main context the cross. There is no doubt about it. Baptism implied the great context of the cross.
Undoubtedly, with that larger context—the background consciousness, the fulfilment of the Word of God, obedience to it in every step and movement, and this capitulation to what baptism implied and involved, namely the cross in all its significance—with that full, comprehensive, deep meaning, the Holy Spirit came upon Him.
It was followed by a testing. And then, what might we have expected immediately? Whatever we should have expected, the next thing is not according to our expectation at all: it is the wilderness.
All that is a background: mighty consciousness of destiny and mission; absolute, meticulous obedience to the Word; and a complete, undeniable capitulation to the way of God. Heaven answers that. The Spirit breaks through and comes upon Him with all that awareness.
That is not what you expect. You have gone as far as that; you have got all of that foundation. Do not expect the next thing to be the wilderness. Whether you expect it or not, very often it is.
Now He is in the wilderness, and we note here the focal point of Satan’s attack. Satan focused his attack upon the question of sonship. There is no mistaking that.
Varying his methods and his means of attack, coming along different lines, the one thing that is present every time is: “If Thou art the Son.” “If Thou be the Son.” That is the focal point of every kind of satanic attack. Make no mistake about that. That is what he is after. That is the thing that matters.
But then, we have said that it is not just the fact of sonship that Satan is attacking. It is the significance of what sonship implies, signifies, and involves.
Sonship involves and implies personal and family inheritance, and heirship. That consciousness in the Lord Jesus was not just a feeling or a sense. It was a mighty knowledge, a mighty intelligence.
You have a phrase like this: Jesus, knowing that His hour had come, and that the Father had delivered all things into His hands. Come back to the temptation: “All these things will I give Thee.” The whole thing—all things.
All that amazing revelation and insight tells us the full story of the counsels of God from eternity: to sum up all things in Christ. By Him, through Him, unto Him, were all things created.
Sonship—yes, what it implies for Himself personally: “Heir of all things,” Whom He appointed heir of all things. But not only for Himself: for this family of which we were speaking this afternoon, this family which God, by Christ as Father, was reconstituting.
This divine family, of which the Word quite definitely says that we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. This inheritance, this heirship, is signified by that word “Son.” That is the focal point.
It is not just the position, the office, or the title. It is what this is going to lead to, if in some way it is not subverted. That is why it was made the focal point. It carried with it no less an issue than world dominion and universal authority.
Notice that Satan used that word: “All this authority.” The word of the risen Lord is, “All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth.” That is involved here—dominion over this world and universal authority as vested in sonship.
That, then, meant an immediate and direct challenge to the prince of this world. Sonship meant that, and always means that. Therefore, the Son must be deflected somehow. He must, in some way, be ensnared.
Well, let us leave it there for a moment and go back to Jordan.
The Jordan meant that that destiny—His destiny, and the destiny of His fellow-heirs—and all this divinely intended purpose, was only to be reached by way of the cross. That is what Jordan meant.
And He knew it, accepted it, and committed Himself to it. But that was no small committal. That way—He knew quite well its meaning and implications. That way, in its spiritual and moral significance, would be the most devastating way to His humanity.
It would mean that His soul would be exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. It would mean that He would be in great anguish, sweating as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.
It would lead to being forsaken of God for one terrible, unmaking, eternal moment—a moment like an awful eternity in the spiritual and utter darkness. That was involved.
He was human, the Man, and He could shrink—shrink from all that—and cry out of His humanity, “Is there no way out? Is there no other way? Oh, that it might not be necessary. Let this cup pass from Me.”
That was not going back upon His commitment, but it was the awful battle of that commitment and all that it involved, now in full force breaking upon Him. Baptism meant that. The great end would only be reached along that line—the way of the cross.
Was that what He was fighting out in the wilderness? Was it? Was that the great battle that brought Him to physical and mental exhaustion over those many, many long-drawn-out hours of day and night? Was that it? Was He facing it all?
If we are right in our surmise, then we can understand the diabolical and cruel attack of the enemy: “There is another way. You need not go that way. You can have it all without the cross.”
Are we right? I feel that that uncovers the whole thing. Yes, that was the battle. That was the meaning of the wilderness.
Satan was saying in other ways and words, “It need not be. There are other ways for You to reach Your end and realize Your destiny. Use Your divine power to save Yourself.”
That was the sting of the serpent, was it not, when He was actually on the cross? “Save Thyself.” From beginning to end, this great conflict was this: the way out, the way through this—save Thyself. You need not go that way.
“Do something to make an impression on men by some trick. Cast Yourself down; suddenly appear amongst the crowd as out from heaven. Make a tremendous impression. You will capture them. You will not have to argue that You came from heaven.”
Or, failing there: “Cede to me some right of world dominion. Acknowledge me as the prince of this world, and come alongside of me in my governing position. You get it all.”
And all that in the hour of physical exhaustion and weakness. We only have to know something of a tremendously exhausting time over some spiritual interest, over some tremendous emergency in the things of God, and be fainting with weariness, to know how cruel and diabolical the devil can be. So it was.
“Well, You can have it all without the cross.” That is the point. “You need not go that way.”
But what value He gave to the cross, if that is what you mean. So I think the meaning of it all is this: He won. He won that fundamental battle.
Though the time would come when its desperate and terrible reality would break upon Him again, the foundation of His victory was laid in the wilderness. He would be able to say in the day of the most terrible ordeal, “The prince of the world cometh: and he hath nothing in Me.”
That was settled in the wilderness. He got through all that then. He accepted the cross in principle and meaning. He won the fundamental battle and came from the wilderness strengthened by the Spirit and by angels.
Now what do we come to? No wonder that there was such authority in His steps, in His spirit, and in His ministry.
You see, the whole issue, dear friends, is that of authority: the way of authority, the way of divine power, the way of the anointing—which is only another way of saying the same thing. The anointing operates in power and authority.
From that time, He is a Man in authority. Straight to Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me.” He is not a weakling, a defeated Man with a question. From there onward, He has everything in His hands.
It is amazing that everything was in His hands right into the judgment hall. The authority was not with the high priests. The authority was not with Pilate. They were like pawns in His hands. It was with Him.
He was able to say concerning His life, “No man taketh it from Me. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again: this commandment received I from My Father.”
Yes, from the very beginning, this kind of authority springs out of the settling of major issues fundamentally, leaving no place for a divided mind or heart.
A man or a woman who has a question has no authority. Never. Always pulled between two ways, divided in heart—there is no power in that life, no authority in that life, no impact coming from that life.
There must be registered: here is one who knows where he is going and knows where he stands. No, that is what He is after. You have got to settle some things. We have got to settle some things, as far as possible, once and for all, in principle.
If there is going to be power, there is going to be authority. And when I use that word authority, I want you to recognize that in His life here on this earth, it was not official authority at all. It was moral and spiritual.
It is like that with us. We may have no office, no place, no position, no recognition amongst men, no official authority. But there is something greater than the official: it is spiritual authority.
That man, that woman, young or old—they know where they stand. They know the way they are taking. They know what they mean. They have settled certain fundamental issues which have delivered them from a divided mind and a divided heart.
That brings in tremendous moral strength and moral authority—not the fierceness and forcefulness of a strong natural mind, but the singleness of a heart in God.
That, I believe, lies behind this: “He came from the wilderness in the power of the Spirit.” The power of the Spirit.
All this speaks to us because, dear friends, we have already said that so very much of what was true of the Lord Jesus is true of us.
There are only a very few things in His case in which we have no place. We have no place in deity, which was His. We have no place in atonement, which He wrought—thank God. There are very few things in which He is unique.
In most of the things which were true of Him, we have a place. At this present time we are occupied with this one thing: that we have been anointed in Him.
The anointing which was His was His as Head of the Body, and we inherit that anointing. We are baptized in one Spirit into one Body. We come into the anointing.
But you see how the anointing works. You see what the anointing has as its goal. The anointing has as its goal no less a thing than this: joint-heirs with Christ to all the things of God, and dominion with Him in reigning for ever and ever.
That is tremendous—what we are called to. While it may be true that the atoning aspect of His cross is His and His alone, and not ours, there is such a thing as filling up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ for His Body’s sake, which is the church.
It is only another way of saying that there are aspects of the cross in which we have fellowship with Him. This great destiny is by this way, and there is no getting out of it except by Satan’s way of compromise: “Come down. Come down. Save thyself.”
We are left with only those two alternatives. What was Satan trying to do in that wilderness?
First of all, he was seeking persistently to bring the spirit of sonship into question. Though do recognize that that is one of the things in which we are involved with Christ.
I do not know whether you have any exercise about that matter. May I make this confession to you? With the consciousness of intensifying conflict, stress, pressure, and suffering, I have wondered how I might finish up.
I have found myself praying that my faith might hold out to the end, and that I should not, at the end, come under a cloud of doubting my sonship. That is an issue. That is a very living one.
I do not want to frighten you or make things difficult, but, dear friends, that is part of what the Lord’s people have had to face so often right at the end: the dark cloud of physical and mental exhaustion, when suffering creeps over the mind and the light of God seems to fade out. The great question of sonship is raised. That is a terrible issue.
Well, if that sounds too terrible, and for young people especially makes things look very difficult, let me remind you of this: you have got the Holy Spirit. That is the point.
That brings me right back to why we are speaking about this at all: the tremendous importance, the unspeakable value, of having the Holy Spirit within.
John said to Christians in a time of terrible persecution and suffering, when all the questions of faith were rising, “The anointing which ye have received abideth in you.” Abideth in you.
Oh, it is a tremendous thing, in all the conflict, to have the anointing. We cannot make too much of the importance of the Holy Spirit dwelling within.
So, rather than be frightened by what I have said, remember: the Spirit of sonship Himself is in you. Rest you upon Him. Stay you upon Him. Count you upon Him. Believe you in Him.
This is not a matter of being a very clever person, or a very gifted and able person. This is something for the nothings and the nobodies.
I say that with a tremendous background in the Word of God: the anointing will never, never function where self-importance is on the throne. The very functioning of the anointing specifically requires that we ourselves are at a discount.
It was at the point of exhaustion and weakness that Christ came out triumphant, because the Spirit and heaven ministered to Him in His weakness.
Go back to your Old Testament. When the spies went over to the land and came back with their majority report, they said, “We were in their sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in our own sight.”
All right, that is not such a terrible thing. That is really not a bad thing at all. If Joshua is really a type of the energies of the Holy Spirit, then He made the grasshoppers drive out seven nations mightier than themselves.
You like that? Grasshoppers! There is a famous football club in America which wins some wonderful victories, and they have named themselves the Grasshoppers. All right, be a grasshopper if you are winning victory.
But, you see, it is the Holy Spirit, not ourselves at all. The Holy Spirit in us and through us is the mighty energy. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” That is a tremendous thing.
The first thing, then, Satan was trying to do was to bring the spirit of sonship into question. Oh, be guarded on that matter.
The second thing that he was trying to do was to sabotage the supreme issue of sonship—that is, spiritual authority. That is the supreme issue of sonship: spiritual authority.
And lastly, he was trying to nullify the inherent potentiality of sonship: heirship, the inheritance, possessing the kingdom. That is what he was trying to do. He is always trying to do that.
But again I come back and say: if Jesus had not been anointed at the Jordan, it would have gone ill with Him in the wilderness. But we have an anointing. “Ye have an unction.”
If you really, really have come into the meaning—the true meaning—of being a child of God, you have the Spirit.
I know the various theories and interpretations of this whole matter, the doctrine of the Spirit, whether everybody who is born again really has the Spirit. I am not careful to try to argue that out tonight.
I simply say this: no new birth can take place without the Holy Spirit. If the new birth is an inward thing, the Spirit does it inside; and with the new birth the consciousness of a new inward government is established. That is no other than the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Some of us, years after we were saved, came into a new experience of the Spirit, a fuller experience of the Spirit. But we knew in those earlier days, when we were doing many things which today we are horrified ever to have done, that there was something working within which we never had before we were the Lord’s.
There was that throne of judgment, that adjudicating on matters, that troubling of us about a certain type of thing. We learned much before ever we came into a greater understanding, by the very fact of the Spirit.
Now, you can go away, if you like, and become involved in all these contentions about the doctrine of the Spirit. But let us rest back on this: if we are children of God, the Spirit of God is in us—the Spirit Himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
That is where we begin the Christian life. We learn much as we go on.
Oh, dear friends, I say this to you: the point on which so much of the trouble, confusion, and misunderstanding rests and turns is just this—that it is a matter of the measure of the Spirit’s liberty and way in us.
More than anything else, if any of us have at any time had a crisis and come into some fuller knowledge of the anointing, it truly has been a very big crisis. It was not because of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It was because the cross was allowed to do some more drastic work in us, to make way for the Spirit.
The cross always does that. The measure, then, of the Spirit in our lives, the measure of the functioning of the anointing, and therefore the measure of our victory over the enemy and of our coming to that end to which we have been born by the Spirit, will be the measure in which, like our Master, we have faced the meaning of the cross and accepted it.
We must capitulate to it, think out its issues if necessary where this world is concerned and where our own interests are concerned, on every other question, and have no divided mind about these.
The Lord help us.