1912 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

eached the age of thirty and consequentlywas permitted to offer Himself without spotto God as the world's Sin-offering. SaintPaul quotes as applicable to Him the wordsof the Prophet, "Lo, I come to do Thy will,oh God," as it is written in the volume ofthe book concerning Me. I now presentmyself to be the Antitype, the fulfiller, ofevery prophecy that Divine wisdom has caused to be recorded,and the Antitype of every feature of the Lawapplicable to Me.There the Redeemer became the antitypical PassoverLamb, the antitypical bullock of the Atonement Day Sin-offering.There He gave up His life to the doing of theFather's will; there He as the Man Jesus died; there Heas the antitypical bullock was slain; there He was begottenof the Holy Spirit and became the antitypicalPriest--the Sacrificer. Through the following three anda half years of His ministry He carried out this consecrationand completed it at Calvary, crying, "It is finished!"R4970 : page 50LED OF THE SPIRIT--INTO TEMPTATIONWhen Jesus received the begetting of the Holy Spiritat His baptism it was the begetting to the divine nature,and with it came great enlightenment to His mind, asrepresented in the words, "And the heavens were openedunto Him," literally, rent asunder. Forthwith He couldsee clearly into the Divine arrangements and purposesrespecting Himself in a manner not possible to Him priorto His consecration. And so it is with all those whofollow in His steps. The deep things of God are revealedto them gradually, as they are able to receive them, butnever until after they have made their consecration vowsto the Lord. With His followers as with Himself, thetrial or temptation or testing as to loyalty comes moreparticularly after consecration than before. Hence theimportance of Jesus' injunction: "Sit down first and countthe cost."--Luke 14:28-33.But with us as with Jesus the Father provides not onlya clearer appreciation of our trials and responsibilities, butalso a clearer perception of the glories which will followto the faithful. In Jesus' case the opening of the heavens--the enlightenment of His mind respecting the DivinePlan--was a much more wonderful matter than it is withus, because with His perfection of brain and of heartHe was able to realize instantly the lengths and breadthsand heights and depths of His undertaking, in a manneronly partially attained by us after years of progress andstudy. At once the Master realized the full import of theDay of Atonement sacrifices, of the Passover Lamb slain,of the prophecies that spoke of Himself as being led as alamb to the slaughter, and of the type which pictured