mentions (i. 36) between the families of
Jesus and John had not led to any intimacy between the two young men. John
certainly did not know of his kinsman's mission (John i. 31), nor was his
conception of the Messiah such that he would look for its fulfilment in
one like Jesus (Matt. iii. 10-12). One thing, however, was clear as soon
as they met,--John recognized in Jesus one holier than himself (Matt. iii.
14). With a prophet's spiritual insight he read the character of Jesus
at a glance, and although that character did not prove him to be the
Messiah, it prepared John for the revelation which was soon to follow.

87. The reply of Jesus to the unwillingness of John to give him baptism
(Matt. iii. 15) was an expression of firm purpose to do God's will; the
absence of any confession of sin is therefore all the more noticeable. In
all generations the holiest men have been those most conscious of
imperfection, and in John's message and baptism confession and repentance
were primary demands; yet Jesus felt no need for repentance, and asked for
baptism with no word of confession. But for the fact that the total
impression of his life begat in his disciples the conviction that "he did
no sin" (I. Pet. ii. 22; compare John viii. 46; II. Cor. v. 21), this
silence of Jesus would offend the religious sense. Jesus, however, had no
air of self-sufficiency, he came to make surrender and "to fulfil
all-righteousness" (Matt. iii. 15). It was the positive aspect of John's
baptism that drew him to the Jordan. John was preaching the coming of
God's kingdom. The place held by the doctrine of that kingdom in the later
teaching of Jesus makes it all but certain that his thought had been
filled with it for many years. In his reading of the prophets Jesus
undoubtedly emphasized the spiritual phases of their promises, but it is
not likely that he had done much criticising of the ideas held by his
contemporaries before he came to John. As already remarked he seems to
have been quicker to discover his affinity with the older truth than to be
conscious of the novelty of his own ways of apprehending it (Matt. v. 17).
When, then, Jesus heard John's call for consecration to the approaching
kingdom he recognized the voice of duty, and he sought the baptism that he
might do all that he could to "make ready the way of the Lord."

88. This act of consecration on Jesus' part was one of personal obedience.
There were no crowds present (Luke iii. 21), and hi