Luke 3:1-13

SECOND PART: THE ADVENT OF THE MESSIAH, Luke 3:1 to Luke 4:13.

For eighteen years Jesus lived unknown in the seclusion of Nazareth. His fellow townsmen, recalling this period of His life, designate Him the carpenter (Mark 6:3). Justin Martyr deriving the fact, doubtless, from tradition represents Jesus as making ploughs and yokes, and teaching men righteousness by these products of His peaceful toil. Beneath the veil of this life of humble toil, an inward development was accomplished, which resulted in a state of perfect receptivity for the measureless communication of the Divine Spirit. This result was attained just when Jesus reached the climacteric of human life, the age of thirty, when both soul and body enjoy the highest degree of vitality, and are fitted to become the perfect organs of a higher inspiration. The forerunner then having given the signal, Jesus left His obscurity to accomplish the task which had presented itself to Him for the first time in the temple, when He was twelve years of age, as the ideal of His life the establishment of the kingdom of God on the earth. Here begins the second phase of His existence, during which He gave forth what He had received in the first.

This transition from private life to public activity is the subject of the following part, which comprises four sections: 1. The ministry of John the Baptist (Luke 3:1-20); 2. The baptism of Jesus (Luke 3:21-22); 3. The genealogy (Luke 3:23-38); 4. The temptation (Luke 4:1-13). The corresponding part in the two other synoptics embraces only Numbers 1:2,, Numbers 1:4. We shall have no difficulty in perceiving the connection between these three sections, and the reason which induced St. Luke to intercalate the fourth.