The Life of Jesus in Four Accounts 7 min read Lesson 3 of 12

The one scene all four Gospels begin with, the voice from heaven, and the forty days that three of them put next

The Baptism and the Wilderness

Whatever else they leave out, all four Gospels begin the public life at the Jordan, with John baptizing and Jesus coming to him. It is the first scene the four share. Three of them follow it at once with forty days in the desert, and the fourth, John, has the Baptist tell it as testimony rather than show it. Here the man from Nazareth is named Son, and then tested on what that means.

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Lesson 3 of 12 · The Jordan

The public life begins at the river, in all four accounts. John the Baptist is preaching repentance and baptizing in the Jordan; Jesus comes from Nazareth and is baptized with the crowd; the Spirit descends like a dove; a voice says, you are my beloved Son. That voice is the hinge of the scene, and its words are stitched from two Old Testament texts, a royal psalm and a servant song, so that Son means king and servant at once. Matthew, Mark and Luke then send him straight into the wilderness for forty days, where the tempter opens with "if you are the Son of God" and Jesus answers three times from Deuteronomy, the book Israel was given after its own forty years. The fourth Gospel does not narrate the baptism but has the Baptist testify to it, which is John’s way with most things: not the event, but what it meant.

At the river

Mark tells it in three verses, and the three verses are the shape all the others follow.

In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. A voice came out of the sky, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” — Mark 1:9–11 · WEB

Read the comment on The Beginning of the Good News

Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan; coming up from the water he saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending on him like a dove; a voice came out of the sky: you are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. The heavens are not opened in Mark; they are torn, the same verb he will use of the temple veil at the end. The voice speaks to Jesus, "you are," where Matthew has it speak to the bystanders, "this is." Its words come from Psalm 2:7, the coronation psalm, you are my son, and from Isaiah 42:1, the servant in whom my soul delights. A king and a servant, in one sentence, before he has done anything.

υἱός huiós G5207

apparently a primary word; a "son" (sometimes of animals), used very widely of immediate, remote or figuratively, kinship:--child, foal, son.

A son, in the widest range: a child, a descendant, one who belongs to a class, and in the Old Testament idiom the king, whom God calls my son at his enthronement (Psalm 2:7). The voice at the Jordan uses the word with the definite article and the adjective beloved, which is the word Genesis uses of Isaac. Son of God in the Gospels is therefore a title before it is a doctrine: it names the anointed king. What more it means, the four accounts spend their length showing, and John states plainly at his opening. The tempter uses the same phrase in the next scene, and the centurion at the cross will use it last.

Fulfilling all righteousness

Matthew alone records an objection, and it is John the Baptist’s.

“But John would have hindered him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” But Jesus, answering, said to him, “Allow it now, for this is the fitting way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed him.” Matthew 3:14–15 · WEB
I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me? Allow it now, for this is the fitting way for us to fulfill all righteousness: Matthew answers the question his readers will ask, why the sinless one took a baptism of repentance, with the word fulfill, which is his word for everything.
“and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form like a dove on him; and a voice came out of the sky, saying “You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.”” Luke 3:22 · WEB
The Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form like a dove: Luke’s detail, and Luke alone says Jesus was praying when it happened.
“John testified, saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending like a dove out of heaven, and it remained on him. I didn’t recognize him, but he who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘On whomever you will see the Spirit descending and remaining on him is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”” John 1:32–34 · WEB
I have seen the Spirit descending like a dove out of heaven, and it remained on him; I have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God: the fourth Gospel’s account, entirely in the Baptist’s mouth.
“He humbled you, allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know, that he might teach you that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth.” Deuteronomy 8:3 · WEB
Man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth: the sentence Jesus will answer the tempter with, in its home, where Moses is explaining the manna.

Forty days

Mark gives the wilderness two verses; Matthew and Luke give the three temptations, in different orders.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of God’s mouth.’” — Matthew 4:1–4 · WEB

Read the comment on Forty Days in the Wilderness

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil; after forty days and nights he was hungry; the tempter said, if you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread; he answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. The Spirit that descended at the river drives him out here. The tempter’s "if you are the Son of God" picks up the voice’s "you are my Son" and turns it into a dare, and all three of Jesus’ answers are quotations from Deuteronomy 6 to 8, the chapters where Moses tells Israel what forty years in the desert were meant to teach. The forty days replay the forty years, and this time the son does not fail the test. Matthew ends with the mountain and the kingdoms; Luke ends with the temple pinnacle, because his Gospel is going to Jerusalem. Neither order is wrong. Each writer put last the temptation his book is about.

What John does instead

The fourth Gospel has no baptism scene and no wilderness. It has the Baptist, standing in the river on a day after the event, telling a delegation from Jerusalem what he saw: the Spirit coming down and staying. That is John’s method in miniature. He assumes a reader who knows the story from the others, and gives the meaning as testimony. His Baptist also says the sentence the other three never give him, "behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world," on the day after, which sets the whole Gospel under the sign of the Passover it will end at.

What the scene asks

It asks the reader to hear the voice before watching the works. Everything the four accounts go on to show, the healing, the teaching, the road to the cross, is done by someone already named Son, and the naming came first, with nothing done to earn it. The wilderness is the first test of whether he will act like a son or demand to be shown he is one. A reader tempted to prove something about God by bread, or by a leap, has been here.