Biblion Bible Commentary
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Praying, the Heaven Was Opened
Luke 3:21-22
21 Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus also had been baptized and was praying. The sky was opened, · WEB
Two verses for the baptism, and the detail this account adds is that he was praying.
Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus also had been baptized and was praying. The sky was opened Luke 3:21.
The baptism is given in the earlier accounts Mark 1:1–13 Matthew 3:13–17, with John's protest and the answer about fulfilling all righteousness. Here it is compressed to a subordinate clause — Jesus also had been baptized — and the weight falls somewhere else.
Two things are this account's own.
The first is when all the people were baptized. He is in the queue. The scene is not staged apart from the crowd; he goes down with everyone else who came out to the river, which is exactly the identification the whole ministry will be criticized for.
The second is and was praying. No other telling has it, and it is the first of a series. This Gospel will show him praying before choosing the twelve Luke 6:12, before the question at Caesarea Philippi Luke 9:18, on the mountain when his appearance changed Luke 9:29, in the garden, and from the cross — most of them recorded here alone. The pattern established in this verse is that the openings in his life come while he is praying.
The sky opens as he prays, and not as he is baptized.
And the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form like a dove on him Luke 3:22. In a bodily form is added here, which is this writer's habit of nailing things down — the same instinct that dated the chapter by six rulers. Something was there to be seen.
"You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased." The voice speaks to him rather than about him, which is the form in this account and in the earliest one. It is spoken before a single sermon has been preached or a single healing done. The approval rests on who he is, and the work follows from it rather than earning it.
All three are present in two verses — the voice, the Son, the Spirit — at the doorway of the ministry.
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