Well, then, taking that point of view, the next question that arises is as to the purpose of this descent of the Spirit.  Plainly, as I have said, it was the coronation and anointing of the Monarch.  But a man is king before he is crowned.  Coronation is the consequence and not the cause of his royalty.  It is but the official and solemn announcement of a previous fact.  No additional power, no fresh authority, comes of the crowning.  And so the first purpose of this great fact is distinctly stated, in John’s Gospel, as having been the solemn, divine pointing out of Messiah to the Baptist primarily, but in order that he might bear witness of Him to others.  The words which follow are a commentary on, and part of the explanation of, the descent of the Holy Spirit.  They are God’s finger, pointing to Jesus and saying, ’Arise, anoint Him, for this is He.’

But it must be remembered always that this was neither the beginning of that divine Spirit’s operation upon Jesus, nor the beginning of His Messianic nature and consciousness; nor the beginning of His Sonship.  That day was not in deepest truth the ‘day’ on which the Son was ‘begotten.’  Before the baptism there was the consciousness of Messiahship witnessed in these words, so singularly compacted of humility and authority:  ’Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness’; and before His baptism, and even before His birth, that divine Spirit wrought His manhood, and ere the heavens opened, or the dove fluttered down upon His head, He from everlasting was the Son in the bosom of the Father.

So we see here, I think, if we follow the lead of the Scriptural teaching, not the beginning of powers or communications, but an advance in these.  Christ’s baptism was an epoch in His human development, inasmuch as it was the public official assumption of His Messianic office.  He came from out of the sheltering obscurity of the Galilean village nestling among its hills.  He had now put His foot upon the path, set with knives and hot ploughshares, along which He had to walk to the Cross.  Inasmuch as it was an epoch in His development (for His manhood was capable of growth and maturing), and inasmuch as new tasks needed increase of gifts, and inasmuch as His man’s nature was subject to the conditions of time, and capable of expansion and increase of capacity, therefore, I believe that when Christ rose from the waters of baptism, no new gift indeed was His, but such an advance in the communication to His manhood of the sustaining Spirit, as fully equipped Him for the new calls of His Messianic work.

His manhood needed, as ours does, the continual communication of the divine Spirit, and His manhood, because it was sinless, was capable of a complete reception of that Spirit.  Sinless though He knew Himself to be, as His own words declare, He yet bowed His head to the baptism of repentance, which He needed not for Himself, just as He afterwards bowed His head to a darker, a sadder baptism, which He had to be baptized with, though it likewise He needed not for Himself, because in both the one and the other He would make Himself one with His brethren.  The Spirit of God had shaped His manhood ere His birth.  The Spirit of God had been abiding in His holy infancy and growing youth, but now it came in larger measure for new needs and His Messiah’s work.