(2) Object of Christ. With regard to the sec ond point at issue, as to the object of Christ in undergoing baptism, we find, in the first instance, that he ranked this action among those of his Messianic calling. This object is still more de fined by John the Baptist (John i :31), which Lucke interprets in the following words: 'Only by entering into that community, which was to be introductory to the Messianic, by attaching himself to the Baptist like any other man, was it possible for Christ to reveal himself to the Baptist and through him to others.' Christ. with his never-failing reliance on God, never for a moment could doubt of his own mission, or of the right period when his character was to be made mani fest by God (Paulus, Exeget. Handbuch, i; Hase, Leber! Jesu, sec. 54) ; but John needed to receive that assurance in order to be the herald of the Messiah who was actually come. For all others whom John baptized, either before or after Christ, this act was a mere preparatory consecration to the kingdom of the Messiah; while for Jesus it was a direct and immediate consecration, by means of which he manifested the commencement of his career as tho founder of the new theocracy, which began at the very moment of his baptism, the initiatory character of which constituted its gen eral principle and tendency.
(3) Miraculous Incidents. With respect to the miraculous incidents which accompanied time baptism of Jesus, if we take for our starting point the narration of the three Gospels, that the Holy Spirit really and visibly descended in the form of a dove, and proclaimed Jesus, in an audible voice, to he the Son of God, there can be no difficulty in bringing it to harmonize with the statement in the Gospel of John. This literal sense of the text has, indeed, for a long time been the pre vailing interpretation, though many doubts re specting it had very early forced themselves on the minds of sober inquirers, traces of which are to be found in Origen (Contr. Cels 1:48), and which Strauss (p. 37()) has more elaborately re newed. To the natural explanations belong that of Paulus (Exeg. Ilandb.) that the dove was a real one, which had by chance flown near the spot at that moment ; that of Meyer, that it was the figure of a meteor which was just then visible in the sky, and that of Kninoel (ad Matt. who considers the dove as a figure for lightning. and the voice for that of thunder, which the eye witnesses, in their ecstatic feelings. considered as a divine voice, such as the Jews called a Both-kol (Meyer). Such interpretations are not only irre concilable with the evangelical text, but even pre suppose a violation of the common order of na ture, in favor of adherence to which these inter pretations are advanced.
A more close investigation of the subject, how ever induces us to take as a starting-point the ac count of the apostle St. John. It is John the Bap tist himself who speaks. He was an eye-witness,
nay, to judge from Matthew and John, the only one present with Jesus, and is consequently the only source—with or without Christ—of infor mation. Indeed, if there were more people pres ent, as we are almost inclined to infer from Luke, they cannot have perceived the miracles attending the baptism of Jesus, or John and Christ would no doubt have appealed to their testimony in veri fication of them.
In thus taking the statement in St. John for the authentic basis of the whole history, a few slight hints in it may afford us the means of solving the difficulties attending the literal conception of the text. John the Baptist knows nothing of an ex ternal and audible voice, and when he assures us (i:33) that he had in the Spirit received the prom ise that the Messiah would be made manifest by the Spirit descending upon him and remaining— be it upon or in him—there; this very remaining assuredly precludes any material appearance in the shape of a bird. The internal probability of the text, therefore, speaks in favor of a spiritual vision in the mind of the Baptist ; this view is still more strengthened by the fact that Luke supposes there were many more present, who, notwithstanding, perceived nothing at all of the miraculous inci dents. The reason that the Spirit in the vision assumed the figure of a dove we would rather seek in the peculiar flight and movement of that bird than in its form and shape.
This interpretation, moreover, has the advantage of exhibiting the philosophic connection of the incidents, since the Baptist appears more conspicu ously as the immediate end of the Divine dispen sation. Christ had thus the intention of being in troduced by him into the Messianic sphere of operation, while the Baptist recognizes this to be his own peculiar calling; the signs by which he was to know the Messiah had been intimated to him, and now that they had come to pass the prophecy and his mission were fulfilled. None of the evangelists give any authority for the com mon tradition that the descent of the Spirit upon Christ was sensibly witnessed by the multitude.
4. Christian Baptism. Jesus, having under gone baptism as the founder of the new kingdom, ordained it as a legal act by which individuals were to obtain the rights of citizens therein. Though Tie caused many to be baptized by I lis disciples ( John iv :t, 2), yet all were not boptized who were converted to I lint; neither was it even necessary after they'had obtained participation in lim by his personal choice and forgiving of sin. But when Ile could no longer personally d im mediately choose and receive members of II is kingdom, when at the same time all had been accomplished which the founder thought neces sary for its completion. Ile gave power to the spir itual community to receive, in Ilk stead, mem bers by baptism (Matt. xxviii:to; Mark xvi: 16).