Pastor John,
This “Pearl” (below) would include the man Jesus, would it not? John more than accepted Jesus when he came to him.
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Without a doubt, what Preacher Clark said in that Pearl would have included Mary’s son.
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I’ve been thinking about this. The Law of Moses made sacrifices available if a person erred in certain ways. Would a person who made the prescribed sacrifices then be regarded as perfect under the Law?
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Yes.
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And was that condition all that was required of the man Jesus?
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Yes. Mary’s son was only required to keep the law that God gave to Moses, just like everyone else in Israel. And as Preacher Clark’s Pearl suggests, John’s baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River was Jesus’ receipt from God, showing he had obeyed God, just as that baptism was everyone else’s receipt for obedience.
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Also, I’d been thinking about the things John the Baptizer said of Jesus, in particular, “Behold the Lamb of God” which he said at least twice. Reading the passage just now I realized that whenever I have read, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him,” (John 1:29) I have assumed that it meant Jesus was coming to John to be water baptized but that does not have to be the case. In fact, the following verses really only make sense if the Son of God had already taken up his abode in the man Jesus’ body. From the other gospels it seems Jesus went immediately to the Temptation after he was baptized by John, so perhaps Jesus was in fact returning to Galilee via Jordan (where John was) after the Temptation at the time of these verses in John. Maybe I was alone in thinking that Jesus was coming to be baptized, but it showed me how I read things with assumed understanding.
Damien
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We certainly do have to stay alert to avoid assuming too much when we read the Bible. I, too, have always thought as you did about John 1:29. And I see what you mean about the following verses. Very interesting!
Pastor John
