Matthew 3:16 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

The heavens were opened. — The narrative implies (1) that our Lord and the Baptist were either alone, or that they alone saw what is recorded. “The heavens were opened to him” as they were to Stephen (Acts 7:56). The Baptist bears record that he too beheld the Spirit descending (John 1:33-34), but there is not the slightest ground for supposing that there was any manifestation to others. So in the vision near Damascus, St. Paul only heard the words and saw the form of Him who spake them (Acts 9:7; Acts 22:9). That which they did see served, as did the tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost, as an attestation to the consciousness of each, of the reality of the gift imparted, and of its essential character. That descent of the Spirit, “as it were a dove,” as St. Luke adds (Luke 3:22), “in bodily form,” taught the Baptist, as it teaches us, that the gift of supernatural power and wisdom brought with it also the perfection of the tenderness, the purity, the gentleness of which the dove was the acknowledged symbol. To be “harmless as doves” was the command the Lord gave to His disciples (Matthew 10:16), and when they read this record, they were taught as we are, “of what manner of spirit” they were meant to be.