Such entire absorption in his mission, which leaves us in ignorance of even the details of his later activity, must have given force to his message. [1402] And still the voice, everywhere proclaiming the same message, travelled upward, along the winding Jordon which cleft the land of promise. It was probably the autumn of the year 779 (a.u.c.), which, it may be noted, was a Sabbatic year. [1403] Released from business and agriculture, the multitudes flocked around him as he passed on his Mission. Rapidly the tidings spread from town and village to distant homestead, still swelling the numbers that hastened to the banks of the sacred river. He had now reached what seems to have been the most northern point of his Mission-journey, [1404] Beth-Abara (the house of passage,' or of shipping') - according to the ancient reading, Bethany (the house of shipping') - one of the best known fords across the Jordan into Peræa. [1405] Here he baptized. [1406] The ford was little more than twenty miles from Nazareth. But long before John had reached that spot, tidings of his word and work must have come even into the retirement of Jesus' Home-Life.
It was now, as we take it, the early winter of the year 780. [1407] Jesus had waited those months. Although there seems not to have been any personal acquaintance between Jesus and John - and how could there be, when their spheres lay so widely apart? - each must have heard and known of the other. Thirty years of silence weaken most human impressions - or, if they deepen, the enthusiasm that had accompanied them passes away. Yet, when the two met, and perhaps had brief conversation, each bore himself in accordance with his previous history. With John it was deepest, reverent humility - even to the verge of misunderstanding his special Mission, and work of initiation and preparation for the Kingdom. He had heard of Him before by the hearing of the ear, and when now he saw Him, that look of quiet dignity, of the majesty of unsullied purity in the only Unfallen, Unsinning Man, made him forget even the express command of God, which had sent him from his solitude to preach and baptize, and that very sign which had been him by which to recognise the Messiah. [1408] [1409] In that Presence it only became to him a question of the more worthy' to the misunderstanding of the nature of his special calling.
But Jesus, as He had not made haste, so was He not capable of misunderstanding. To Him it was the fulfilling of all righteousness.' From earliest ages it has been a question why Jesus went to be baptized. The heretical Gospels put into the mouth of the Virgin-Mother an invitation to go to that baptism, to which Jesus is supposed to have replied by pointing to His own sinlessness, except it might be on the score of ignorance, in regard to a limitation of knowledge. [1410] Objections lie to most of the explanations offered by modern writers. They include a bold denial of the fact of Jesus' Baptism; the profane suggestion of collusion between John and Jesus; or such suppositions, as that of His personal sinfulness, of His coming as the Representative of a guilty race, or as the bearer of the sins of others, or of acting in solidarity with His people - or else to separate Himself from the sins of Israel; of His surrendering Himself thereby unto death for man; of His purpose to do honour to the baptism of John; or thus to elicit a token of His Messiahship; or to bind Himself to the observance of the Law; or in this manner to commence His Messianic Work; or to consecrate Himself solemnly to it; or, lastly, to receive the spiritual qualification for it. [1411] To these and similar views must be added the latest conceit of Renan, [1412] who arranges a scene between Jesus, who comes with some disciples, and John, when Jesus is content for a time to grow in the shadow of John, and to submit to a rite which was evidently so generally acknowledged. But the most reverent of these explanations involve a twofold mistake. They represent the Baptism of John as one of repentance, and they imply an ulterior motive in the coming of Christ to the banks of Jordan. But, as already shown, the Baptism of John was in itself only a consecration to, and preparatory initiation for, the new Covenant of the Kingdom. As applied to sinful men it was indeed necessarily a baptism of repentance;' but not as applied to the sinless Jesus. Had it primarily and always been a baptism of repentance,' He could not have submitted to it.