Following Judah's Lion

Relections of the Baptism of Jesus

Matt.3:13-15 - Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. But John forbad him saying, I have need to be baptized of thee and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered Him.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem fulfilling many Old Testament prophecies concerning His coming and incarnation. His childhood and early adult hood are without much narrative specifics so approximately twenty years passes since his teaching in the Temple as a boy and before His ministry as the Messiah begins and is recognized. John Mark sets the stage providing the information that many throughout Judaea and Jerusalem were coming to be baptized by the son of Zacharius who was named by Gabriel as John. The “Baptist” as he was called, a priest, was baptizing men and women with the baptism of repentance. These were sinners going down into the water which had much symbolism to the Jewish understanding.


Water on one hand represented death, the death the entire world felt in the flood. These sinners were in fact acting out a metaphor of death to their sins and death to their own will. The fear of drowning was inherent within the actual immersion as well. Secondly the rivers represented a life giving flow. The Nile, the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Jordan all represented a source of life for the fields and crops and indeed for people themselves. And thirdly, this act represented cleansing, the cleansing of their sin. The Jews were fastidious in their washings, and to be immersed in the Jordan River was a act of symbolism with which all could identify. And the mental picture of sinners from all over coming to the river where John was baptizing represents an awakening to sin that soon would be understood within the context of He who was now here. Repentance had begun, but it was the spiritual precursor to what lay ahead.


Among the unremarkable crowd lining the river banks awaiting their turn to be baptized stands Jesus of Nazareth. Nothing to warrant excitement or uniqueness, at least not to the naked eye. He was an average Galilean as far as anyone knew. But as He comes to John the son of Zacharius is moved by the Spirit to recognize something about Jesus that was different, much different. It must have been the Spirit since no earthly understanding or revelation could possibly see in Jesus something of the divine. John bows in deference to the authority and calling of Jesus and asks to be baptized by Him. Again we see the Spirit working within John’s heart.


But Jesus replies that it is good that He be baptized by John to fulfill all righteousness - now. (arti) The Greek for “now” indicates a certain temporary aspect to what Jesus had said and later we would see exactly why. But what did the Lord mean when He said “to fulfill all righteousness”? What fulfillment was He speaking of when Christ said that? In one glorious moment for the delicate and discerning ears of the Spirit, we can hear Jesus both project backward and forward simultaneously.


Think back to the greatest act of freedom ever wrought be the hand of Almighty God to the Jewish people, the exodus. Oh the imagery, oh the pageantry, oh the majesty of the crossing of the Red Sea upon the dry land provided by the miraculous power of the One who made the Sea and land itself. Jesus is about to fulfill the shadow that was captured by the exodus narrative when God’s people were released from slavery in Egypt and led to the promised land. And the Lord would not accomplish this from the sidelines or even overseeing it from the balcony of heaven, He would not even step on dry land. Jesus was revealing His ministry would take Him through the waters of trouble and the attack of the enemies of God without the dry ease over which the children of Israel traversed. Messiah’s future would dramatically fulfill the glorious picture of the exodus. Moses crossed between the pillars of the waters that could have killed them all, but Christ would go through and under those deathly waters and would for three days voluntarily drown in their destruction. And so was the exodus being fulfilled in Him.


And yet the Lord was pointing forward as well to the cross. This is the first glimpse of His mission and fate. Jesus did not need to be baptized for repentance, He indeed had nothing about which to repent. But He would submit to the ultimate condescension, identifying with the sins of mankind. He was God in human form, without sin, and yet yielding to the mystery of human death. He was not the son of Adam, He was the Son of God, but He would allow Adam’s sons to take His life as He laid it before them. Jesus was unfolding the prophetic element of His mission by succumbing to the same baptism as all the rest, just as He would succumb to death like all the rest. A glorious and pivotal moment in the life of the Incarnate Savior.


The mother of James and John, the apostles, asked Jesus that her sons be elevated to a place of prominence in heaven and Jesus replies,


“You don’t know what you are asking. Can you be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”


The Lord uses the word "baptism" to refer to His death, a curious reference and one that again sheds light on the baptism of Jesus. They reply that they can, and the Lord confirms that they will indeed, but they still have no perspective on what that will mean. They will be martyred for Him, but He will die for the world. When Jesus enters the baptism of repentance, He does so for us, for in another glorious mystery Christ will become our repentance. When we as believers are baptized into Christ, we are baptized into His death and we receive the power of God’s Spirit to repent of our unbelief and of dead works. And when we are baptized by water, we are metaphorically plunged in that watery grave that pictures the death of our Savior and our identification with Him as He was identified with us for our redemption.


So this fulfillment of righteousness is now to be pictured as Christ goes beneath the water and is brought up again by John’s hands which picture the hand of God in the power of the resurrection. Is it any wonder Jesus called John the “greatest man of woman born” as he was privileged to represent God the Father? And the Lord Jesus is not just the new Moses, He stands as the new Jonah who is cast into the water and the troubled and fearful waters ceased. And like Jonah, Christ will come forth on the third day and he will have an incredible message of hope to this entire world pictured in Nineveh.


So Jesus is baptized in an extraordinary revelation of just how far He will go to both identify with us and redeem our souls. But go back a few moments and listen as John the Baptizer catches a glimpse of Jesus as He comes toward him desiring to be baptized. John exclaims, “Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world!”. What a statement made by a priest who knew exactly what the “lamb” referred to. Sure the Prophet Isaiah had made reference to his being “led like a lamb to the slaughter” and the wilderness might have made that connection, but when John says that He “takes away the sins of the world” he makes an arresting and mind boggling identification that not only sees Christ as the Passover Lamb, but the Lamb for the entire world. At the very first revelation of who Jesus was, His mission is uncovered in the entirety of its universal expanse. He would bear and take away the sins of the world.


And so after John had baptized Jesus and as the Lord made His way up out of the water, the heavens were opened “unto Him” the Scriptures tell us. Of course God is everywhere and His Spirit can manifest Himself in and among anything, but the Father chose to give a further glimpse of who Jesus was. As the heavens opened a dove-like figure descends and lights upon the Messiah which the Scriptures identify as the Holy Spirit. This confirmation, this anointing, was made visible for the sake of John especially so all may know that Jesus’ mission and ministry would be in the power of the Spirit and not just to attract some earthly rabbinical followers, no, this ministry would come directly from heaven.


And then the voice, the actual voice of God the Father. "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Another gift of grace offered for John and us as well, because Jesus knew who He was, He did not question John’s original hesitancy about baptizing Jesus, and Christ knew who His Father was even referring to Him at twelve years of age. This voice from heaven would lend authority and even publicly reference the love that the Father had for the Son as well as the first "I am" used concerning Jesus and the divinity the Jews would all recognize. And with the Spirit’s descending we are given a majestic and glorious look into the mystery we call the “Trinity”, the three person Godhead. The eternal redemptive plan of the Godhead continues to unfold and the Son of God, the Christ, has now been separated for the work for which He has been sent.


There is an obscure reference in John’s gospel that informs us that the Baptist saw Jesus the next day as well and again identifies Him as the Lamb of God, and two of John’s disciples heard John’s words and left him that day to follow Jesus. So in the mouth of two witnesses let everything be established, and in this case the two times John the Baptist identifies Jesus and the two witnesses of John’s disciples who left to follow Jesus. Everything around this baptism had been miraculous and culminated in the Messianic anointing as well as the commencement service for His ministry.


We have looked at the baptism of Jesus, one of many baptisms of John in the Jordan River, the same river that had parted to bring God’s people into the promised land, but this baptism would serve as a forward looking picture of the redemptive labor that would usher “whosoever believes” into an eternal promised land. It would do well for every believer in Christ to not only follow Him in believer’s baptism, but to meditate upon what this baptism meant in the life of our Savior and what it means to us.