APE-MEN

APE-MEN

“And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led about by the Spirit in the wilderness.” Luke 4:1

Luke starts with the significant word "and." This occurs immediately after the baptism with Divine satisfaction made evident. A new phase of service starts here, the testing of the Servant, and His perfect victory over the foe. Jesus now stands as the second Man, the last Adam. Here let this Scriptural statement be specially noted and remembered. Too often He is spoken of as the second Adam. Scripture does not use the expression. It speaks of the "last Adam." (1 Cor. 15:45) The first Adam was the head of a race. The last Adam is the Head of a race, and He is the last, because there will be no new departure, no other federal headship, and no other race. The last Adam, then, passing into temptation, went to the wilderness, into single and lonely combat with the enemy. No foe other than the captain of the hosts of evil is opposed to Him there, and no friend other than the God in Whose hand His breath is, and Whose are all His ways, is with Him. The wilderness is the place of immediate dealing with evil. All secondary things are swept aside."Full of the Holy Spirit." Complete, mature, perfect, full. There the emphasis is not upon the fact that He was anointed by the Holy Spirit. That was true. He had been specifically and specially anointed for His holy work; but here Luke shows you God's Man, His adult Man, thirty years of age, His mature Man, anointed  of  the Spirit for Messianic work, but in the perfec­tion of His humanity going into the wilderness, “Full of the Holy Spirit." That is normal human life. That is not normal human life as the world knows it today; but the world does not know what normal human life is. That is the trouble with the world.  The world is less than human. To me the idea that man has ascended from the ape is ridiculous when I think of what man really is. I am very much more inclined to think sometimes that he is descending to the ape! Men and women who have been born again are admitted into normal human life, according to the Divine ideal and purpose. This is God's Man, full of the Holy Spirit. God never intended man to live in his own strength, and walk alone. The original creation of man was the creation of a being, the secret of whose mental and spiritual power, in order to complete realization of per­sonality, was that he should be full of the Holy Spirit. God never intended man to face temptation in his own strength. God's second Man passed down to face it, full of the Holy Spirit, and therefore perfectly equipped in His fellowship with God, through the Holy Ghost, for everything that lay ahead. He was confident, not in the ability of His human life divorced from God, but in His humanity in fellowship with God, because He was filled with the Holy Spirit