Luke 3:21 Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized, and while He was praying, heaven was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.”
Acts 2:33 Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.
Acts 2:38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Gal.3:2-5, This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain — if indeed it was in vain? 5 So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles in you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
I’m still just blown away at the starting point of our Christian life that is pictured in the baptism of Jesus. It’s a beginning that only a loving Father would think of. Two things happened at Jesus’s baptism that equipped Him and prepared Him to go to battle in a lost and fallen world. Remember, that the first thing Jesus did after his baptism was face the enemy in the wilderness during 40 days of testing and temptation. The Matthew 4 passage says that He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and the Luke 4 passage says that He was led by the Spirit while in the wilderness. The gift of the Spirit given to Him by the heavenly Father at His baptism was now strategically leading Him, and supernaturally enabling Him. He did not find Himself in the wilderness because He had done something wrong, but simply because He was carrying and fulfilling the purposes of God. As a matter of fact, as the Holy Spirit was resting on and remaining on Him at His baptism, the Father was establishing His identity as “The Beloved,” in whom the Father found pleasure.
These two great gifts that the Father gave Jesus are the same two gifts that we are given to us in our baptism. Before sending us out into the wilderness of this fallen world to do daily battle with the enemy of our souls, our Father declared that in Christ we are “The Beloved,” in whom he finds pleasure; and then He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit as proof of our “belovedness,” and as the supernatural “helper” who enables us to navigate the wilderness victoriously. Isn’t that what any good father would do before sending his son out into the world. Wouldn’t he affirm his love for him and then bless his son with all the resources he could spare, to help his son be successful? Well, our good, good Heavenly Father did just that at our beginning, but at a supersized, supernatural level.