Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§11.5 Beginning from the Baptism of John
was praying' (Luke 3.21). 165 And John, as we have already noted, does not even
mention the event of Jesus' baptism but focuses attention (by repetition) on
John's witness of the Spirit's descending and remaining on Jesus (John 1.32-33).
Equally significant is the fact that the early sermon in Acts 10.37-38 recalls how
Jesus' mission 'began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached, how
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power'. In short, the
story of Jesus' mission begins 'from the baptism of John' not so much because of
Jesus' baptism by John, but because of what happened on that occasion. 166
There were thus two key elements in the story as narrated in early Christian
circles: the opening of the heavens as prelude to (1) the descent of the Spirit on
(Mark says 'into') Jesus, and (2) the voice from heaven hailing Jesus as 'my son,
the beloved, with whom I am well pleased'. The fact that the Fourth Evangelist
has the same double emphasis, albeit in his own terms (1.32-34 — the Spirit descends
and remains on Jesus; John testifies, 'This is the Son of God'), confirms
that this is where the primary emphasis lay in the early traditions about the beginning
of Jesus' mission.
(1) As Acts 10.37-38 makes explicit, the descent of the Spirit was obviously
understood in early Christian reflection as Jesus' anointing by God for his
mission. This was how the first followers of Jesus understood the prophecy of
Isa. 61.1 to have been fulfilled in him: 'the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because
he has anointed me . . .'. This 'anointing' (masah/echrisen — Isa. 61.1;
Acts 10.38) was presumably what constituted Jesus as 'the anointed one', 'Messiah/Christ'
in their eyes.
165. On normal techniques for determining the content of Q it must be judged possible that
Q contained an account of Jesus' baptism (the point being obscured by the primary dependence of
Matthew and Luke on Mark's account) (so, e.g., Streeter, Four Gospels 291; Polag, Fragmenta Q
30; Catchpole, Quest 76; otherwise Kloppenborg, Q Parallels 16). The main reason for the conclusion
is that the following Q account of Jesus' temptations (Matt. 4.1-11/Luke 4.1-13) seems to
assume a report of Jesus being hailed as God's son (hence the temptation, 'If you are God's
son ...' — Q 4.3, 9) (Meier, Marginal Jew 2.103, with further bibliography n. 10). That would imply
that the main focus in Q's account of the events at Jordan was on the heavenly voice hailing Jesus
as God's son, though if the Q account also began with Jesus being led into the desert by the
Spirit (Robinson/Hoffmann/ Kloppenborg, Critical Edition ofQ 22-23), both Spirit and Son motifs
would again be present as in the preceding episode and as in the core of the birth narratives.
166. The implications for Christian theology of baptism will have to be considered later,
in vol. 2. For the moment, we may note that the subsequently popular idea that Jesus' baptism
'purified the water' for future Christian baptism first appears in Ignatius, Smyrn. 18.2 (see further
Luz, Matthäus 1.152). McDonnell and Montague simply repeat Ignatius: 'the Spirit... in
some way effected a sanctifying of the baptismal water through' Jesus (Christian Initiation 28).
But in the NT itself Jesus' baptism is never presented as a model for Christian baptism (see further
Dunn, Baptism 32-37). Equally unsatisfactory is it simply to identify Jesus' anointing as
his baptism: 'his anointing was his baptism' (Harvey, Jesus 141).
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