The Life of Christ: The Baptism of Christ

From the time Jesus was born until he reached the age of 30, not a single word was spoken of his childhood, except for the story we read and looked at last week. What happened to the first 30 years of his life? Were they not important? What happened? Well, we know that shortly after Jesus was born, Herod issued the decree, which prompted God to tell Joseph to take Jesus and Mary westward to Egypt for safety. They did come back, but by the time we see Jesus again, he has aged to 30, Joseph is nowhere to be found, and he is appearing before John the Baptist in order to be baptized. Today, we are going to look at the circumstances and event of Jesus baptism.

Before we go further, let’s read Matthew 3:13-17.

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Have you ever been to a conference, class or seminar where you saw someone there in attendance who you thought could lead the class instead of sitting in it to learn? I remember sitting in the Conference down in Mt. Vernon this past October and looking around at the numerous people. I remember thinking at this point that any one of these people could get up and teach what was being taught, and yet, they were listening attentively and trying to learn.

This is what John the Baptist was trying to say here. Jesus was the Son of God and John knew it…he was a prophet of God. Yet, Jesus replies that he indeed needs it. So, this begs the question that a lot of people ask. Why was Jesus baptized if he did not sin? There is no Biblical mandate to baptism in the old testament. There were some sects that baptized Rabbi’s, but John’s baptism was for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus was perfect…why be baptized?

There are some theories that think Jesus needed to be baptized for taking on the entire world’s sin. However, I do not think this is the case in this Scripture here. I believe it was exactly as it is stated here in verse 15. It was to fulfill all righteousness. But once again, what does that mean?

Let’s take a look at the word righteousness. Righteousness means to act in accord with divine or moral law…in other words, free from guilt or sin. Ok, this seems to prove the point that Jesus was already righteous and did not need John’s baptism.

First, we need to keep in mind that when Jesus speaks, he is the Word in the flesh. When the words, “Let it be so now” appear, this is not some casual word spoken. It is a command. What is interesting is the original Greek word there is aphiēmi arti (Let it be so now). The word aphiēmi can be translated many different ways which include to dismiss, to depart from, to cancel a debt, to stop, or to allow. All of these definitions talking about getting rid of something, and then one or two translations of the word saying to allow it. In this instance, I believe we can take something from both sides of the fence.

I believe that Jesus telling John to divorce himself from his presuppositions, that what Jesus is doing, he cannot fathom at this point. In addition to telling John to divorce himself from his presuppositions, Jesus also told him to allow it too because this needs to be done for one specific purpose.

Now, I do not believe Jesus needed to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, but I believe it was to inaugurate and show that he was indeed righteous. He partook in the baptism as a sign of what we are to do to follow Jesus. John is the baptism of the forgiveness of sins, but Jesus is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We are to follow in Jesus footsteps, if the man who was perfect was baptized, then we should be too. We accept Christ’s righteousness for the forgiveness of sins and the baptism of the Holy Spirit when we do the same as him.

The mark of approval on this situation is the Trinity being present at this event. God the Father gave a voice of approval on his Son, who was submitting to the will of the Father, and the Spirit descended on the Son like a dove. The Trinity was present at this event and gave the approval for the start of his ministry.

The baptism of Jesus is one of those hotly debated concepts within Scholarly realms. My study is by no means definitive either way. My guess is that there is more to the baptism of Jesus than we will ever know this side of Heaven. The important thing to remember is that Jesus was baptized to fulfill all righteousness and that we need to follow suit if we are to follow Jesus.

Unfortunately, different denominations of Christianity baptize for different reasons. I think it is important to have our differences, but perhaps we argue too much and forget the main purpose of baptism; to be united with Christ as one body to do the will of the Father until Christ comes again. We cannot continue to be consumed by our petty differences of baptism, confession of faith, doctrinal statements, and many other areas we disagree on.

The band Downhere has a song on their first album called “Cathedral Made of People”. If you are listening to the sermon, I’ll play the song. If you are reading it, please read the lyrics, or even look it up online at youtube.com. It is a great song and I pray you listen and hear the lyrics in your heart of hearts.

If they shut down the churches,
Where would you go?
If they melted all the stained-glass windows
Replaced every sanctuary with a condo
Where would you go?
Where would you go?

We are a cathedral made of people
In a kingdom that the eye can't see
We're a house, we are the bride
Where God's Spirit lives inside
And nothing ever could stand against her

If they burned every Bible
What would you know?
If they tore your marked-up pages
How would you grow?
And declared your devotion to be criminal
What would you know?
What would you know?

When they throw you in prison
What will you do?
When they hate you for the things that you know are true
They can tear down this temple,
But they can't touch you.

Did you hear the message? What would happen if they burnt the Bibles, tore down the churches and declared your Devotion to Christianity to be a crime? There is coming a time when this will happen worldwide. Depending on whether you believe in the Rapture or not is whether you’ll be here if it happens in our lifetime. Even in the country we love so much it is becoming a more and more private thing to practice our religion.

I preach the message of the baptism of Christ to show the unity of the fellowship of believers. No matter what we believe baptism accomplishes, we have to be able to stand firm, together and say in one voice, we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God and we are baptized into the fellowship of the believers.

Let’s stand together now, unified, not divided, believing in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, reception of the Holy Spirit, no matter the details, because there will be a time when all churches will be destroyed and we will be united like we never have before.

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