Dwelling Within

The Gospels tell us that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River and that the Holy Spirit descended on Him like a dove. The picture is the Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus, that Jesus is the one who is really going to lead people into the land of rest, into the glory of salvation. And so Jesus, the Gospels tell us, is anointed by the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist was reluctant to baptize Jesus. He seemed perplexed when he said, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? Jesus answered that it was necessary to fulfill all righteousness. Today on Renewing Your Mind, we continue our look at the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Sinclair Ferguson helps us understand the mysterious relationship between Christ and the Spirit. There's a great Old Testament text that should be written in the heart of every Christian and certainly everyone who studies Christian doctrine.

You'll know it, I'm sure. Deuteronomy 29, 29. It's easy to remember, 29, 29, where Moses says the things that have been revealed belong to us and to our children. But he says there are secret things that belong only to the Lord. There are many things about the Trinity that we wouldn't be able to understand if God told them to us. There are many aspects of the inner relationship that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit enjoy with each other that are kept secret. They are, in a sense, not for us to pry into.

How much more we may know of them in glory waits to be seen. But there are hidden things. What we have to focus attention on are the things that have been revealed because we believe that God reveals Himself as He really is. So, as we look at God's revelation of Himself, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we are convinced from Scripture that this is how God is. This may not be everything that we could ever know about God. This is certainly not everything God the Trinity knows about Himself and His inner relationships, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But if we are to know who God is, and especially to know the Holy Spirit, we need to keep our eyes fixed on the revelation God has given to us in Scripture. We want to be biblical thinkers rather than speculative thinkers. I'm sure many of you have had the kind of conversation with a non-Christian when they say, the way I like to think about Jesus is, or the way I like to think about God is.

And usually we are able to be gracious to them, but the truth of the matter is how they think about Jesus and God is utterly irrelevant. The only real question is, how is God Himself, and how has He actually revealed Himself to be? And so we are tracing the biography, we might say, of the Holy Spirit, how from the very beginning of Scripture He reveals Himself in creation, how through the Old Testament period, through the Old Covenant, He's revealing Himself and pointing forwards to the Lord Jesus. And then, of course, now in the New Testament supremely, He reveals Himself in and through the Lord Jesus. Just as Jesus is the access to knowing God as Father, you can't know God as Father apart from through Jesus, so Jesus is also the access to knowing the Holy Spirit. And we've seen that there are four moments in the life and ministry of Jesus where the Holy Spirit is particularly clearly revealed to us in Jesus' incarnation and in His infancy. And then I said the second stage in which the Holy Spirit is manifested in Jesus' life is in His baptism and temptations. Now, Jesus' baptism and temptations are recorded in different ways, of course, in Matthew and Mark and also in Luke.

I want to focus particularly on what Luke says. All of those writers underline for us that at the baptism of Jesus it becomes clear that God is three persons, not one person who manifests Himself in three different ways. A false teaching that's been known since the early Christian centuries as modalism, the idea that there is one God, and at one time He reveals Himself as Father, and then He withdraws, and then another time He reveals Himself as Son, and then He withdraws, and another time He reveals Himself as Holy Spirit. That's what some of us jokingly refer to as the Peter Sellers view of God. If you've ever seen a Peter Sellers movie, he appears now in this guy's, now in this guy's, now in another guy's, but it's Peter Sellers. There aren't three Peter Sellers.

There's one Peter Sellers. Sometimes he's this, sometimes he's that. But at Jesus' baptism, what do we see and hear? We see Jesus being baptized by John as the Son of God. We hear a voice from heaven that isn't Jesus' voice saying, this is my Son. And we see the Spirit descending on the Lord Jesus in the form of a dove, three divine persons, as it were, in fellowship together in the signal event of the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there are many ways of thinking about the baptism of Jesus, but I want just to think about it in terms of what is the Holy Spirit teaching us here about Himself? First of all, there's an echo here, isn't there, of what happened at creation. Genesis 1 to 2, the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And so, if you had been an Old Testament student and you had reflected on this event, you would have seen behind this event of Jesus in the water and the Holy Spirit coming, hovering over Him like a dove, you would have thought to yourself, this is somehow or another connected to the original creation, and of course it is. Interestingly, in that context, in Luke's Gospel, Luke inserts the genealogy of Jesus.

It's a very odd place to put it, isn't it? And if you're going to write a biography of somebody, you don't get them to 30 years of age and then say, oh, I think I forgot to tell you about his family tree. You usually put that where Matthew puts it right at the beginning. The interesting thing about Luke's Gospel and the genealogy in Luke's Gospel is that Luke traces the lineage of Jesus, the Son of God, right back all the way to the first man, Adam.

Do you see what he's hinting at? He's hinting at the fact that what we are witnessing here in the baptism of Jesus as the Spirit hovers over the waters and then Jesus emerges into His ministry is nothing less than God beginning a new creation in the power of the Holy Spirit. Remember how later on, 2 Corinthians 5.17, the Apostle Paul will say, now if we are in Christ, we have entered into a new creation. God is beginning something new, and just as the Holy Spirit was engaged in the first creation, now He's engaged in the new creation.

But we've already seen in our studies something else. The Spirit coming, hovering over the waters of the River Jordan in which Jesus is baptized, and He comes in the form of what kind of bird? A dove. Now, does that remind you of something? Does that remind you of the story of Noah? Noah in whom the people believed they might find rest from their struggles, from the burden of sin. Perhaps Noah was the Savior who had been promised in Genesis 3.15. And Noah emerges, you remember, from the ark in which God has secured him when the dove comes to rest on dry land, and it's almost as though in a picture. You remember, probably everybody who watched this scene, who knew of this scene, who first learned of this scene, they probably knew the story of Noah off by heart. I remember one of our children when we used flashcards with them, you know, to tell Bible stories. He was always wanting the story of Noah. They knew the story of Noah, and here God is teaching them how what is going to happen in Jesus is that the disappointed hopes of the people of Noah's time are going to be fulfilled in this one who himself will experience the deluge of God's judgment in his true and final baptism on the cross. And the Spirit of God has come upon him in order to help him to fulfill that ministry.

But there's something else here, isn't there? There's something about these Jordan waters that would be significant to the people, don't you think? It was the River Jordan that the people of God passed through following the ark of the covenant when they entered into the promised land. And God had taught them right from the very beginning that that promised land, which was really to be theirs, was simply a symbol of a greater land, of the whole earth that God's Messiah would inherit. And so here now for Jesus in the River Jordan is the picture, as the Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus, that Jesus is the one who is really going to lead people into the land of rest, into the glory of salvation.

And so Jesus, the Gospels tell us, is anointed by the Holy Spirit. Now God had given pictures of this in the Old Testament Scriptures, not only the pictures in creation and the picture of the events of Noah and the picture of the entry into the promised land. But God had raised up particular individuals, hadn't He, in the Old Testament, who were anointed, literally anointed with oil as a symbol of God's anointing of them with His Spirit for special ministries. And they were prophets and priests and kings. Prophets were given the privilege of knowing the secret of the Lord and sharing that with God's people. Priests were given the privilege of entry into the presence of God and making sacrifices for and praying for the people. And kings were given the privilege of anointing in order that they might reign over the people. And so when Jesus is baptized in the River Jordan, having been conceived through the Holy Spirit, He is now anointed for the actual exercise of these three ministries to be God's prophet, so that when people hear His voice, God speaks to them, God's priest, so that when He offers Himself on the cross of Calvary, God accepts His sacrifice as a sacrifice for the sins of His people.

And God's King, because Jesus is the One who will be anointed to reign not only over His own people but ultimately over the whole earth. And so when Jesus comes out of the waters of Jordan anointed with the Holy Spirit, there's a sense in which the Holy Spirit, who has been His companion these past 30 years, is now bringing Him on to the stage of history. There's a sense actually, especially in Luke's Gospel, where you almost get a feeling that the Holy Spirit is taking Jesus by the hand and saying, now Jesus, this is the way forward.

Trust me. Trust me implicitly, and I will equip you for the ministry to which the Lord has called you. That's the reason the next thing that happens in the Gospels is temptation. Now, one of the things that's helpful I think for us to see when we read this part of the Gospel narrative, Luke chapter 3 and Luke chapter 4, is just to pause and say to ourselves, I mustn't try to answer the question, how is my experience similar to Jesus' experience?

I must first of all ask the question, in what way is Jesus' experience unique? Because if we don't do that, we'll actually miss the most important point, both of Jesus' baptism and of His temptations. That's why Luke emphasizes that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Actually, Mark, although he gives a very short account of Jesus' temptations, uses a far stronger word.

He uses the word thrown out. The Holy Spirit threw Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted, drove Jesus out into the wilderness. It's a very strong word, God's hand strongly upon Jesus in order to be tempted by the devil. That puts a completely different complexion on Jesus' temptations.

When you and I are tempted, temptation comes to us and we're supposed to flee from it. But Jesus, under the power of the Spirit, is marching into temptation. It's one of the reasons why the Gospel writers, and again especially Mark, underline for us that He was in the wilderness and He was surrounded by wild beasts.

Now, what's the significance of that? It's just this, that whereas Adam was tempted in a garden surrounded by tame beasts, I mean a lion was Adam's pussycat, Jesus is surrounded by wild beasts where the fall has had this horrific impact on the whole of nature. And He's not in a garden, He's in a wilderness, and He's not surrounded by all the trees of the garden of which He can eat except one. He's surrounded by absolute barrenness. For forty days and nights He has absolutely nothing to eat as He fasts in the wilderness.

Do you see, do you see what's happening here? It's that the Spirit is now leading Jesus into a most crucial part of His ministry where in this extraordinary way Jesus is being empowered to reverse what Adam did in the Garden of Eden, sinned by eating and brought chaos into the world. And now Jesus is surrounded here by an environment that's hostile, and the Spirit is saying, now Jesus, under my leadership here in the power of the Holy Spirit, you are going to come face to face with Adam's enemy and the enemy of the whole of humanity. And in a weakened condition, in an impoverished environment, hungry and thirsty, at your most dependent, you will overcome Him by my power.

And that's what the Gospels tell us Jesus did. So that for the first time in history, Satan turned on his back and fled until he could find a more opportune time to attack again and to seek to destroy the Lord Jesus. So this is a truly amazing event empowered by the Holy Spirit. Jesus is overcoming Satan.

Why is this so wonderful? It's so wonderful, of course, because Jesus has done it. But just thinking about the theme we are studying in our studies just now, it's also so wonderful because it tells us wonderful things about the Holy Spirit, about the intimacy of the Holy Spirit with the Lord Jesus, and the intimacy of the Lord Jesus with the Holy Spirit.

And of course, that's the point at which it's appropriate for us to ask the question, so what does this mean for me in my temptations? And the answer is, if you are a Christian believer, it means that the Holy Spirit who enabled the Lord Jesus to put Satan to flight is one and the same Holy Spirit the Lord Jesus has given to you, to empower you to put Satan to flight. And so this extraordinary narrative that Luke compresses essentially into part of Luke 3 and into chapter 4 tells us great things about the Lord Jesus, marvelous things about the Holy Spirit, but also has something to say to us as we remember that the same Holy Spirit has been given to you and to me as was first given to the Lord Jesus. When I was a teenager and a college student, I had a wonderful minister in Scotland who invested himself greatly in me, and there was a hymn he used to love to quote that had this line in it, and I can still hear him slowly and deliberately saying this line of the hymn to us youngsters, think what spirit dwells within thee, what a Father's love is thine, what thy Savior died to win thee, child of heaven shouldst thou repine.

It was Trinitarian, wasn't it? Spirit, Son, Father, but it was the first line that he said with such emphasis, think what spirit dwells within thee. When you're tempted, it is the very same Holy Spirit who overcame through the Lord Jesus, who is able to make you overcome. And incidentally, it's that same Holy Spirit who anointed Jesus as Prophet and Priest and King that empowers you to speak God's Word as God's Prophet, to enter into God's presence as God's Priest, and to live your life as a living sacrifice, and as Paul says in Romans, to reign in life by Christ Jesus. So, when you read about the baptism of Jesus and the temptations, before you ask the question, what does this teach me about me, you ask the question, what does this teach me about the Lord Jesus and about the Holy Spirit in order that I may see it teaches me more about me than I could ever have imagined. Think what spirit dwells within me. That's Sinclair Ferguson helping us understand the Holy Spirit's role in the life of Christ and the role of the Spirit in you and me as believers. This week on Renewing Your Mind, we have been pleased to feature Dr. Ferguson's series, Who Is the Holy Spirit?

In 12 lessons, he traces the work of the third person of the Trinity through Scripture, from creation to the work of Christ to the Spirit's dwelling in our hearts today. And for your donation of any amount, we would like to send you the two-DVD set. You can give your gift when you call us at 800-435-4343, or you can make your request online at renewingyourmind.org. And in advance, on behalf of all of my colleagues here at Ligonier Ministries, thank you for your generous donation. Well, I'm pleased to be joined here in the studio by my colleague, Nathan W. Bingham, who serves Ligonier Ministries as our vice president for ministry engagement. And Nathan, I'm glad to have you here with us because we enjoyed listening to your interview with Dr. Ferguson earlier this week about his new podcast, Things Unseen.

Lee, it's great to be here with you. And I know you and I have really benefited from the ministry of Dr. Ferguson, and it's always a pleasure to sit down and speak with him. As we were talking about Things Unseen, what I really appreciated is when he said he's not recording this devotional podcast to help Christians feel better, but to help them think better. And of course, that resonates with our Renewing Your Mind listeners because of Romans 12 too. We have to have our minds renewed. So, listeners, if you have not yet tuned into Things Unseen, you haven't subscribed to the podcast, I encourage you to search for it wherever you listen to podcasts or go to ligonier.org slash things unseen. That's five days a week with Dr. Sinclair Ferguson. And I could listen to that accent every day, and I'm glad that now I actually can. Yeah, what better way to start the day, right, Nathan, than to listen to Dr. Ferguson deliver this? It's a rather brief devotional, so it doesn't take much time to listen to it.

That's right. They'll be able to listen to Things Unseen and Renewing Your Mind every day. Well, Nathan, thanks for being with us today.

And again, if you would like to request Dr. Ferguson's series, Who is the Holy Spirit, with your donation of any amount, our phone number is 800-435-4343, and our online address is renewingyourmind.org. Well, how well do we understand the culture that we're living in? In order to properly evaluate our times, we need to be familiar with the ideas that have shaped it. Next week on Renewing Your Mind, R.C. Sproul traces the contours of Western philosophy and shows us how our culture evolved to what we see today. This is an important series, especially in our day, and I hope you'll make plans to be with us beginning Monday on Renewing Your Mind.