s thoughts were full of
prayer. It was an experience which concerned his innermost life with God,
and it called him to communion with heaven like that in which he sought
for wisdom before choosing his apostles (Luke vi. 12), and for strength in
view of his approaching death (Luke ix. 28, 29). His outward declaration
of loyalty to the coming kingdom was thus not an act of righteousness "to
be seen of men," but one of personal devotion to him who is and who sees
in secret (Matt. vi. 1, 6). As the transfiguration followed the prayer on
Hermon, so this initial consecration was answered from heaven. A part of
the answer was evident to John, for he saw a visible token of the gift of
the divine Spirit which was granted to Jesus for the conduct of the work
he had to do, and he recognized in Jesus the greater successor for whom he
was simply making preparation (Mark i. 10; John i. 32-34). To Jesus there
came also with the gift of the Spirit a definite word from heaven, "Thou
art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased" (Mark i. 11). The language
in Mark and Luke, and the silence of the Baptist concerning the voice from
heaven (John i. 32-34), indicate that the word came to Jesus alone, and
was his summons to undertake the work of setting up that kingdom to which
he had just pledged his loyalty. The expression "My beloved Son" had clear
Messianic significance for Jesus' contemporaries (comp. Mark xiv. 62),
and the message can have signified for him nothing less than a Messianic
call. It implied more than that child-relation to God which was the
fundamental fact in his religious life from the beginning: it had an
official meaning.

89. For Jesus the sense of being God's child was normally human, and in
his ministry he invited all men to a similar consciousness of sonship. Yet
his early years must have brought to him a realization that he was
different from his fellows. That in him which made a confession at the
baptism unnatural and which led to John's word, "I have need to be
baptized by thee," was ready to echo assent when God said, "Thou art my
Son." He accepted the call and the new office and mission which it
implied, and he must have recognized that it was for this moment that all
the past of his life had been making preparation.

90. The gift of the Spirit to Jesus, which furnished to John the proof
that the Greater One had appeared, was not an arbitrary sign. The old
prophetic thought (Isa. xi. 2; xlii. 1; lxi. 1) as well