The Lord Jesus recognized that according to His flesh (His humanity—John 1:14; Rom. 1:3; 8:3) He was good for nothing but death and burial. Jesus needed to be baptized because He became flesh, and the flesh, in the eyes of God, is good for nothing but death and burial. To bury such a dead person by baptism is the way of righteousness, not the way of the law with its statutes and ordinances.
Christ’s ministry commenced through His baptism and then by God the Father’s anointing (Matt. 3:16b-17). The opening of the heavens indicated that the significance of His baptism was accepted and sealed by the heavens. The Father’s sending His Spirit to descend upon Him indicated that the Triune God would be one with Him as the source, supply, power, and authority of His ministry. His anointing by God the Father declared to the whole universe, particularly to the angels, that according to the Spirit of holiness (His divinity—Rom. 1:4) He is the Son of God, the Beloved of the Father, in whom is the Father’s delight.
In the flesh He was good for nothing but death and burial. But by anointing Him the Father declared something according to another source, the source of the Spirit of holiness, His divinity. The Father declared that this One standing in the water, baptized by John, had two sources: the source of the flesh, His humanity, and the source of the Spirit of holiness, His divinity. According to His humanity He was in the flesh, which was good for nothing but death and burial, but according to His divinity He was the Son of God. In the Old Testament sometimes the angels were called the sons of God. Job 1 speaks of a time when God and the angels had a conference, and it refers to the angels as His sons (v. 6). But Christ is not an angel of God. This One is of the divine source, divinity. God anointed Him and declared, particularly to the angels, that He was the Son of God according to His divinity.
His anointing was based upon the Father’s choosing (Matt. 12:17-19) and because of Christ’s loving of righteousness and hating of lawlessness (Heb. 1:9). God brought in the way of righteousness, so Christ as a man hated lawlessness and loved righteousness. Because of this God particularly anointed Him.
At the beginning of His ministry the Lord passed through a temptation under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God arranged by God for the God-man to be tested before His assuming of His ministry (Matt. 4:1-11). Not many have seen that Christ was tempted by the devil under the leading of the Holy Spirit and under the arrangement of God. This anointed One had to be tested by the evil one before He assumed His ministry.
The devil, based upon God the Father’s saying in His anointing to the God-man that He was God’s beloved Son, tempted Him to make a show of Himself being the Son of God for His self-exaltation and self-glorification and to do a miracle to bid the stones to become loaves of bread for His hunger, but the God-man defeated him by not making a show of Himself and not caring for the loaves of bread but for every word of God (vv. 3-4). If any of us had been in the Lord’s place, we probably would have declared, “I am the Son of God,” and then we would have proved it by bidding the stones to become loaves of bread. But Jesus Christ did not take the devil’s temptation. He was the Son of God, but He did not need to make a show of it. He took the position of a man, who lives not only by bread but also by every word of God. He cared only for God’s interests, not for His need. This is the intrinsic significance of the first part of the devil’s temptation.
Again, the devil, based upon God the Father’s saying that the God-man was His beloved Son, tempted the God-man to jump from the wing of the temple so that God would command His angels to bear Him up, but the God-man overcame him by telling him that it is written, “You shall not test the Lord your God” (vv. 5-7). The devil tempted the Lord again to perform a miracle that would exalt and glorify the self, but the God-man overcame him by telling him that He as a man should not test the Lord His God. He was standing on His position as a man, and He did not want to do anything to show that He was the Son of God.
Those who are young in the Lord’s recovery or in the ministry always want to do something marvelous. You may go to a new place and desire to have gospel meetings with many people getting saved and with miracles. But we need to realize that this is a temptation to exalt and glorify the self. Any thought of doing miraculous things in religion for self-exaltation is a temptation of the devil. The Lord Jesus said, “Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, was it not in Your name that we prophesied, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name did many works of power? And then I will declare to them: I never knew you. Depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness” (7:22-23).