(1) Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea, and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, (2) Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.
The Evangelist having in the two preceding Chapter s, faithfully recorded the wonderful events of Christ's incarnation and birth, now enters upon the wonderful history also of Christ's ministry, in order to prosecute it to the end. But in doing this he makes a long stride. The fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cesar, became nearly parallel to the thirtieth year of Christ, when the Lord Jesus entered on his ministry, (Luke 3:23), so that from the twelfth year, in which the last Chapter represents Christ, as found in the midst of the doctors, in his Father's business, to the period of his entrance on his public ministry, Luke passeth by in silence. Reader! think of this, and conceive, if it be possible, how the holy soul of the Lord must have been exercised, during the many years in the society of the ungodly, before the time arrived for making himself known to Israel. If Lot was vexed, as it is said he was, with the filthy conversation of the wicked, 2 Peter 2:7-8. what must Christ have experienced? Pause over the contemplation. For my own part, I cannot but conclude, that here, in this part of the Redeemer's life, in the private circumstances of it, as well as when coming forward to his public ministry, he was fulfilling all righteousness, and acting in all departments, and in all offices, for his people. For consider, Christ being the very same in nature as we are, (yet without sin), in being exercised with the same feelings as ours, his holy soul must have felt, (only in a ten thousand times higher degree), what we feel, when once our souls are renewed by grace, at what we behold, and hear, and see, in the sins of others. And as the Lord Jesus came to bear the sins of all his people, how must he have felt at what he saw and heard of his redeemed in their infirmities and sins? And is it not in this sense, as well as in every other, he is said to have took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses? Matthew 8:17. For let it be remembered, that as his holy nature was not liable to be affected with any disease in himself, personally considered, by sickness, as well as by sin, his knowledge of both must have been one and the same. And the scripture account is, that he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. Romans 8:3. and was made sin when he knew no sin, 2 Corinthians 5:21. Such views of Christ are exceedingly precious! And I cannot but hope that the Reader will have his mind suitably exercised, in contemplating the Lord Jesus under characters so truly endearing, whenever he is led to reflect on the long interval from the birth of Christ, to the more open display of his Person, Work, and Labors, at his entrance on his public ministry!
I only detain the Reader one moment longer at these verses, just to remark, that the characters here spoken of, I mean of Cesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Annas, and Caiaphas, would never have found place for record in the word of God, but for the more perfectly ascertaining the period of John's ministry, and the appearance of Christ. This Tiberius Cesar was the third of the Cesars which were Emperors of Rome. Christ was born under the reign of the second of the name, Augustus Cesar: and the Reader may at once conclude how contemptible the whole were in the view of the Church, since nothing more is said of either, than just by way of recording the period in their reign, which opened in the ministry of John the Baptist to the advent of Christ. And the grand point, as it related to the Gospel of Christ, and which the mention of their names was designed to prove, was, that now Judea was brought into subjection to the Roman power, the prediction of the dying Patriarch Jacob was fulfilled; the sceptre was departed, from Judah, and the lawgiver from between his feet, and consequently the Shiloh was come! Genesis 49:10.