“When John was still baptizing people, he baptized Jesus. As Jesus prayed there, the sky opened up. The Holy Spirit came down in physical form, like a dove. A voice from somewhere in the sky called out, ‘You are my Son. I dearly love you. And I want you to know how pleased I am with you.’” Luke 3:21-22 Casual English Bible
About Stephen M. Miller
STEPHEN M. MILLER is an award winning bestselling Christian author of easy-reading books about the Bible and Christianity and author of the Casual English Bible® paraphrase. His books have sold over two million copies and include The Complete Guide to the Bible and Who’s and Where’s Where in the Bible.
An important point:
Does it say that the spirit actually appeared in the form of a dove or that it came down from heaven in some bodily form as a dove would come down from the sky? That’s a pretty big difference, after all.
Commentator Darrell L. Bock, says the original lingo says there was a visible event, but that the Spirit’s descent was only like that of a gently descending dove. It’s not that the Spirit had feathers. But there was something there to see. The phrasing is apparently more vague elsewhere in the Bible than it is in Luke.