Sermon Exegesis
21 ᾽Εγένετο δὲ ἐν τῷ βαπτισθῆναι ἅπαντα τὸν λαὸν καὶ ᾽Ιησοῦ βαπτισθέντος καὶ προσευχομένου ἀνεῳχθῆναι τὸν οὐρανὸν 22 καὶ καταβῆναι τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον σωματικῷ εἴδει ὡς περιστερὰν ἐπ' αὐτόν, καὶ ϕωνὴν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ γενέσϑαι, Σὺ εἶ ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν σοὶ εὐδόκησα.
21 During the time when all of the people were being baptized, Jesus was also baptized. While he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit in bodily form descended on him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.”
The text of verse 22 should stand as we have it in the UBS text. The external evidence is quite compelling; the reading is both ancient and the most widespread:
These two verses have a classical arrangement and a challenge for translators: they do not contain a main finite verb apart from the initial “it happened” ἐγένετο and God’s final “I am well pleased” εὐδόκησα (in direct discourse). The two verses are simply riddled with infinitives and participles that do not draw focus on any one event over the others. All of what happened was of equal importance, and nothing should be help up as the most spectacular item in a scene filled with wonders and events that continue to proclaim the glory of God to our hearts to this day.
The phrase ᾽Εγένετο δὲ ἐν τῷ βαπτισθῆναι presents an articularized dative infinitive: dative of the time during which these things took place. A circumstantial participle would also have served here. The infinitive recalls the previous context and placed the baptism of Jesus firmly within this same time (the dative points to a point within a sphere: here the sphere is the time of John’s baptizing days).
᾽Ιησοῦ βαπτισθέντος “Jesus was baptized” is actually a genitive absolute. If it were not, we would have ᾽Ιησοῦν βαπτισθέντος for an AcP construction (accusative with the participle); Luke shows a great tendency toward classical constructions of this kind. As a genitive absolute, it becomes a circumstantial participle. The καὶ coordinates it with what precedes and the second καὶ with what follows. Like any circumstantial participles, the phrase can be removed completely “and the sentence will not bleed” (I don’t recall which professor taught me that—probably Prof. David Valleskey—but it’s always useful). It keeps up our attention on everything that was “happening” (ἐγένετο) at the time.
Baptism of course consists of the ceremony instituted by God, the command from God to keep performing the action in connection with his word (we follow Jesus’ command to baptize in the name of the Triune God in Matthew 28:19-20). It also includes the earthly element of water just as the Old Testament ceremonial washings did (we could call them baptisms if we wished). It would have been impractical and virtually impossible for Moses’ people at the foot of Mount Sinai to have found a body of water deep enough to immerse themselves in for the required washings in 1447-1446 BC when the law was passed down (e.g. Leviticus 17:15-16), and neither does the Greek word baptize necessitate a dunking. In Mark 7:4 it simply a word used for doing the dishes, whatever their size and awkwardness (compare the variant which is commonplace enough and made enough sense to the ancients to be included in most translations as a footnote in that place).
During Jesus’ prayer (circumstantial temporal participle—perhaps in apposition to the genitive absolute which precedes but I don’t know of any other case of genitive participles in a genitive absolute in apposition, but again, Luke loves the classics) heaven was “opened” ἀνεῳχθῆναι, aorist passive infinitive. The aorist points us to a fact in past time with no reference to the duration of the precise moment (the participle helps us there). The word ἀνoίγω is a medical term for “opening” a patient with a knife (it has a secondary sense of “heal”), although Luke uses it elsewhere in a much milder sense (Zechariah could “open” his mouth to praise God after his dumbness was cured—although this was in a medical sense, as well: Luke 1:63).
The idea of the opening of heaven takes on a life of its own in the narrative. Other things had been shut. John’s mouth had been shut when John was locked up in prison (Luke 3:20—the verse immediately before these). Elizabeth’s barren womb was opened when God blessing the barren priestly family. Mary’s virgin womb was open when God blessed the barren and sinful world with the miracle of Christ himself. But these things are only things we notice about Luke’s inspired presentation of the text. They are not laid out for us with obvious references.
The Holy Spirit “descended” καταβῆναι (aorist infinitive; reference to the fact but not the precise moment). The clause is an AcI (accusative with infinitive) construction, but this has no special force and merely shows us the subject of the verb (Robertson’s Greek Grammar p. 489). Since the form (σωματικῷ, adjective) was that of a dove, the descent can be rightly depicted as flying, fluttering, or ‘lighting’ on Jesus. This adjective does not otherwise occur, but the adverb is there in Colossians 2:9, where in Christ “all the deity lives in bodily form.” The descent of the Spirit is the moment of the anointing of Jesus, when he could now rightly be called Christ, the Anointed One. However, apart from parenthetical asides provided by Luke about prophecies (2:11, 2:26), the questions of people who mistook John for the Messiah (3:15) and the knowledge of demons (4:41) no one refers to Jesus as the Christ in Luke’s gospel until Peter’s confession in 9:20.
Continuing with the Greek text, we see that even the voice “happening” (γενέσϑαι) from heaven is another infinitive, so that the whole string of events, the baptism of the people, the baptism of Jesus, the opening of heaven, the fluttering of the Spirit and the speaking of God are all set on the same scales with nothing on the other side except the confident “it took place” of the very first ἐγένετο.
For God the Father, Jesus is the beloved (ὁ ἀγαπητός) son, and the object of God’s good pleasure (εὐδόκησα.). That confident statement is made directly to Jesus (ἐν σοὶ).
The three Persons of the Trinity are visibly and obviously present here; the people did not wonder who they are. The early church struggled to come up with a term that described the threeness and yet oneness of God, but the people weren’t at all surprised by it. Indeed, the expectation of the Son of God was in everyone’s heart when Jesus came. People only rejected Christ as the fulfillment; no one questioned whether a Son of God would be expected to appear.
Jesus was baptized as our substitute even as he was crucified as our substitute. Both actions fulfilled the requirement of the Old Testament law for the atonement for sin. The law required the sacrifice of blood to pay for the sin and the washing with water so that the forgiven person would be clean and re-enter the camp. Our baptism unites us a washed, cleansed children of God because Jesus was and is the perfect and sinless Son of God. We are washed in his name and into his name.
Heaven was opened at Jesus’ baptism, and with our baptism heaven is opened for us.
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