The Surety's Baptism
“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” — Luke xii. 50.
Messiah was announced, by the prophets, as King of Peace and King of Righteousness. He was to be Solomon and Melchisedec in one; the great antitype of both. He was to conquer and cast out him who had brought in all the discord; to restore unity and order to a broken and dismembered world. He was to reconcile the various parts of creation, so that not only were God and man, heaven and earth, to be at one, but even the lower races of creation were to have their variances removed, and the lion and the ox, the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, were to dwell together in peace. Everything connected with his person, his work, his word, his reign, was peace. His was to be the “covenant of peace;” his name was to be the “Prince of Peace;’ and in his days there was to be “the abundance of peace” At verse 51 there is an apparent denial of this: “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division.” This, however, clearly means that the first results of his coining were hot the expected ones of peace. He was indeed coming on an errand of peace; but there was something before that, — something introductory to it, yet altogether unlike it. Before the light there must come the darkness; before the still small voice there must come the earthquake, the whirlwind, and the lightning. So, before the peace of Messiah’s reign there must come fire, and war, and division, and persecution, and the sword. Before Israel is planted in their land, to enjoy the abundance of Messiah’s peace, there must come the “tribulation such as never was nor shall be.”
The fire spoken of in the 49th verse is not the fire of Pentecost, nor the symbol of the Holy Ghost, nor the figure of purification. It is manifestly the fire of vengeance, so frequently referred to by the prophets as the precursor of Messiah’s coming and reign. Ps. 1. 3, “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before him.” Ps. xcvii. 3, “A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.” Isa. ix. 5, “This (the last battle) shall be with burning and fuel of fire.” Isa. x. 17, “And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his holy one for a flame.” Isa. lxvi. 15, “Behold, the Lord will come with fire, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire; for by fire, and by his sword (his” flaming sword,” Gen. hi. 24), will the Lord plead with all flesh.” So John the Baptist announced Christ as the Avenger who was to “burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt. hi. 12).
So Paul proclaims him as to come “with flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God.” So do Peter and Jude, and John in the Kevelation. It is fire that is so specially and so awfully associated with Messiah and his day.
Of this fire the Lord here speaks, adding, “What will I if it be already kindled?” — meaning, “Would that that day were come, — that day which is to bring glory to me and my people, — to purge the earth from sin, and make all things new. It is not for its own sake, or for the destruction which it brings, that he longs for the fire, but for the glorious results that are to follow.
He then announces himself as the brinsjer of fire, the kindler of that terrible flame in which creation is to be wrapped, when the wicked are consumed, and when the alloy of the ancient curse is to be burned out of it for ever. “I am come to send fire on the earth.” He tells also with equal distinctness his desire for the arrival of that awful day. Not that he loves the night; but it is the herald of the morn. Not that he desires the day of wrath; but it is the introduction of the day of everlasting peace.
Having thus adverted to his second coming and the woes then awaiting the world, he turns to his first coming, and the woes about to come upon himself. The world’s baptism of fire was certainly to come, but his own baptism of fire must come first. “I have a baptism to be baptized with.” The fire that is to burn up his enemies and purge creation must first descend on him, for he is the great demonstration to the universe that “our God is a consuming fire.” The sword that is to go through the world must first awake against the Man that is Jehovah’s fellow. The cup of trembling that is to go round the nations must first be given into His hands. In the sorrow, and the wrath, and the death, that are to visit this evil world, He must first have his bitter share. 0 dreadful baptism of the Son of God! a baptism which the sons of Zebedee vainly thought they could partake of along with him; a baptism which neither man nor angel could endure; a baptism whose shower of infinite wrath was too fiery, too resistless, too overwhelming, to be borne by any, save one who was superhuman, superangelic, — truly divine; for who but God can bear the wrath of God, and not be totally consumed?
The baptism of the Son of God, here spoken of by himself, was the baptism of wrath; for he who was made sin for us must be baptized with this baptism. Because of this he cried out in his anguish, “Thy wrath lieth hard upon me; thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves;” “Thy fierce wrath (or ‘burnings, Ps. lxxxviii. 16, Heb. xii. 29) goeth over me.” It was thus that the shower, which should have expended itself on us, exhausted itself on him. It was thus that righteousness made way for grace, and, satisfying itself upon the Surety instead of the sinner, proclaimed righteous pardon to the condemned, and righteous liberty to the captive. For the Son of God there was the baptism of fire, in order that for us there might be the baptism of grace and peace.
It is the knowledge of this fiery baptism of our divine Surety that gives to us the reconciliation and the peace which, as sinners, we need. The more thoroughly that we know that baptism, and enter into its gracious meaning, the more do we realise the reconciliation of the covenant, and feel assured that there is no condemnation for us. The knowledge of his condemnation becomes thus the assurance of our own forgiveness, and the discernment of the wrath that has come down on him, conveys to us abiding and unchanging peace; because it is wrath which has wholly and for ever passed away from us.
It was of this fiery baptism that He himself spoke when he said, u Now is my soul troubled.” Of this he spoke more fully in Gethsemane, when his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Of this he spoke upon the cross, when he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Of this he spoke in the Supper, when he said, “This is my body broken for you. .... This cup is the New Testament in my blood, shed for many, for the remission of sins.” It is of this fiery baptism of wrath, under which he died, that our own baptism is the memorial; for it is called “baptism into death,” and we are said to be “baptized into his death,” as if we in baptism were so identifying ourselves with him, as to be baptized with the baptism wherewith he was baptized, and to be brought under the same descending flood of divine wrath as came down on him.
This baptism the Son of God must undergo; and he knew this. It was appointed him of the Father, and arranged in the eternal covenant. “I have a baptism to be baptized with.” He knew it; he knew the reason of it; he knew the result of it; and he knew that it could not pass away from him. He had come to fulfil all righteousness; he had come to be made a curse for us. As the fulfiller of the Father’s will he must undergo the appointed baptism. As the Redeemer of the captive, the Substitute for the sinner, the Man who “pleased not himself,” he must undergo it. It was his lot, his divinely ordained lot. He knew it, and he went on to meet it. “I have a baptism to be baptized with.” He saw Gethsemane in his path, but he turned not aside. He saw Golgotha before him, but on he went, straight to the agony of its cross and death. To do the will of Him who sent him, and to finish his work, at whatever cost, — this was his desire.
But still he felt, in regard to that awful baptism, the human sensitiveness and shrinking which made him in Gethsemane cry, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” “How am I straitened,” he says, “till it be accomplished!”