The opening of the heavens was a magnificent emblem: it gave, at the very beginning of the Saviour's ministry, a vision, and, as it were, an epitome, of the whole work He came to do. He saw, it may be, for a brief moment, the glorious realm from which He had come to earth, and to which, through sorrow and toil. He was to make His way again. The heavens were opened to Him, as our Eepresentative and Forerunner, thus giving us the assurance that every obstacle opposing our return to God would be overcome, and a way made for us into the very home of His dearest children.
2. This opening of the heavens is one of the most beautiful and significant circumstances connected with our Lord's visible ministry. Alas ! that it should be with so many a poor and almost forgotten thing, like the gleam of the lightning, or the shining of the summer-day of a hundred years ago. With too many men the question is not, " Is heaven open above us, that we may have commerce there ? " — but, " Is the earth open around us, that we may gather thence our comforts and our gains ? Is the season good? Are the fields fruitful? Will the times soon mend? Will the click of machinery be heard ere long in full work in our mills, and the hum of revived trade in our towns ? " These questions are good and right. A man is not worthy of his place in this great complex growing world if he does not feel an interest in such questions as these. But there are other questions
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of wider scope which ought to arise in men's hearts, and for answer to which they ought to listen as for life.
There are not a few who have tried hard to make this world, out of what seemed to them its abundant riches, supply all their need without Jesus Christ : but who have been baffled — beaten at every turn. They have gained only to lose. They have rejoiced, only to feel more acutely the pang of the after vexation. They have striven and suffered and sorrowed, only to get for inheritance that old bequest, which Solomon, so long dead, is bequeathing still — "all is vanity." In their desolation they begin to think, and to ask, " Is it God who tells us that * all is vanity ' ? Is He the King of an empty Universe ? Is there with Him, in His gift, nothing better than the things we have won and lost ? " And the answer comes — that there is a way opened to Himself ; that He disappoints only that He may fulfil ; He takes away the less that He may give the more ; He darkens earth that He may show us heaven ; He has reserved Himself and His fulness for our eternal portion. Lo ! the heavens are opened to them and, wise at last, they find their inheritance there.
iii. The Descent of the Spirit.
1. The New Testament like the Old begins with the Spirit. Yet there is a difference in their beginnings. The Spirit of the Old Testament comes out from the darkness ; it has to form the light by which we are to see it. But the Spirit of the New comes from light already created ; it descends from the opened heavens. The Spirit of the Old Testament moves on the face of troubled waters ; the Spirit of the New alights and reposes on the calm bosom of the Son of Man. No wonder the Spirit of the New Testament is like a dove ; it has itself found peace in the heart of its own creation ; it has reached in the soul of Jesus its Sabbath of rest.
2. The Holy Spirit, says St. Luke, "descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon him." What, asks Stalker, was the dove which descended on Jesus? Was there a real dove, which, attracted by His gentleness, alighted on Him, as such creatures when domesticated will sometimes do on persons to whom they are drawn by kindness and amiability ? Or was the dove a
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form of light which glided, with dove-like motion, down on His head to point Him out, as at Saul's conversion a light above the brightness of the sun shone round about him ? An ancient legend says that the whole valley of the Jordan was illuminated.
These questions are not easily answered now. At an earlier time Keble could say " It is probable that the appearance of fire, or of a bright cloud, which had taken in former times the shape of a pillar guiding the Israelites, and which afterwards took that of fiery tongues lighting on the Apostles, now hovered over the Blessed Jesus in somewhat of the form of a dove, with wings spreading over Him ; and we may be certain that it came down with the gentle steady motion of a dove."
Alford is quite explicit : " The Holy Spirit descended not only in the manner of a dove, but in bodily form (Luke) : which I cannot understand in any but the literal sense, as the bodily shape of a dove, seen by the Baptist. There can be no objection to this, the straightforward interpretation of the narrative, which does not equally apply to the Holy Spirit being visible at all, which John himself asserts Him to have been (John i. 32-34), even more expressly than is asserted here. Why the Creator Spirit may not have assumed an organized body bearing symbolical meaning, as well as any other material form, does not seem clear. This was the ancient, and is the only honest, inter- pretation. The express assertion of Luke, and the fact that all four Evangelists have used the same expression, which they would not have done if it were a mere tertium comparationis, are surely a sufficient refutation of this rationalizing (and, I may add, blundering) interpretation." ^