Why was Jesus Baptised - (Part II)
Matthew 3: 13-17
In the first of my two-part series looking at this passage I looked at the reasons why Jesus was baptized, and now I would like to look at what happened when he Jesus went through the waters of baptism and try and explain some of the meaning and consequences of what happened that day. Look at verse 16.
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 alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Verse 16 says that the heavens were opened, wow, we can only imagine what that was like and then it describes the Spirit of God descending like a dove. This is happening is not only a real occurrence, but it is a symbolic representation of Jesus being anointed with the Holy Spirit. A lot of Bible teachers like to point out that how unusual it would have been for a dove of all things to land on him, A dove is a nervy flighty bird, it’s not like other birds. If you walk up towards a dove, they will immediately fly off. Perhaps it is indicative of the nature of Christ that a dove was able to come and land on him. The text actually tells us this dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit and we don’t have to speculate about what the bird represented, so this dove symbolically represents him being anointed with the Holy Spirit. Not that he didn’t have the Holy Spirit before he was born, but this is the anointing that begins his ministry. In Luke’s account it shows that Jesus began his ministry immediately after his baptism. So, God is saying, I’m anointing my son m for his ministry, this was his calling into the ministry. In the Old Testament they anointed kings, to lead and to serve the people. That’s similar to what’s happening here
The second thing that happened is what I’m going to call an affirmation. We see the heavens open up and a voice comes from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I’m well pleased.
So, God’s voice comes from heaven and speaks two verses from the Old Testament and uses these to affirm who Jesus is and how God feels about Him. The first part is taken from Psalm 2, “This is my beloved son”. The second art of the passage is from Isaiah 42, that says he is the one, “in whom I am well pleased”.
In the original Isaiah passage the Holy Spirit is illustrated as being put on the Messiah to show that God approved of and affirmed him for service, . So again, this is a fulfilment of an Old Testament prophecy about the coming Messiah. Matthews Gospel account has already told us that Jesus was baptized to “fulfil all righteousness”, and then God the Father says from heaven, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”. God here is saying, this is the one I affirm, and I approve, so listen to him.
I read the story of boy who when he was growing up in the 1970 loved to go to his local amusement park. He went to the amusement park regularly with his family when he was young. As the story goes, he road on the little rides and the carousel and the rides designed for the younger kids. But what he really wanted to do was ride on the big roller coaster. But the big roller coaster had an age limit, you had to be over 8 years of age to ride on the bigger rides He couldn’t wait for his birthday to come because then he could ride on the big rides with his older brother and his mum and dad as well. When he was 8 years old for his birthday his family took him to the park again, He thought I am no longer a little boy, the day has come when I can ride on the big rides including the roller coaster. Finally, he took his turn in the queue and although it seemed to take forever, he finally got to the front and made ready to board. He was about to board the ride and the gatekeeper pulled him back and said, “wait a minute”, and took him over to check his height against the new measuring post. He then explained that the rules had changed and it no longer was an age qualification, now he would have to measure up to the new height regulation, In this case he was still two inches short. He didn’t measure up. In this passage, God the Father is saying, “this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”, he fulfils all the criteria, he measures up.
One more observation. In the Bible this is the first time that all three members of the Trinity show up at once. Jesus is obviously here. The Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove descends, so he is here, and God the father speaks from heaven. So, all three members of the trinity are here. So, this passage is the first time the trinity is clearly presented in all of the scriptures.
Can I get technical just a minute? One common heretical view of the Trinity is something called modalism. In the Old Testament account of creation, the Holy Spirit appears, then in Gospels he appears here in this way and then again later in the book of Acts, he will appear again. There is a famous refutation of this heresy which take the idea of how modalism portrays the Holy Spirt as actors taking part in a play in a play. Modalism presents these appearances of the Spirit of God as though it’s sort of like a three-act play, In the first act he appears then the curtain closes, then comes out in the second act, same person now dressed as Jesus appears, and then again the curtain closes. Then in a third act, the same person comes out dressed as the Holy Spirit again and closes the show. That’s called modalism.
Modalism says that the Trinity is one God appearing in three modes. Biblical Christianity says no, that is incorrect, there is one God in three persons. This is the passage that refutes Modalism because we got one act and three people on stage, all at the same time. God the father speaks to God the son, and the Holy Spirit descends, all on the same day, at the same moment, in the same scene. So, this passage especially refutes on of the main false teachings about the trinity.
But back to the question we asked at the start, why was Jesus baptized? Answer, to fulfil all righteousness, but also, beyond that when he was baptized, as a way of preparing and commissioning him for ministry and to show that God the father approved and affirmed for his earthly ministry. What do we gain out of all of this.
Well, I think several things. If we go back to the first verse of this passage in Chapter 3 verse 13 and it says, “then Jesus came from Galilee to John”. One of the great lessons of this message of Jesus is to say, here is the king, and that’s the way he's been presented up until this point. And he then comes to John and says, will you baptize me? The dove landing on him is a symbolic act of the meekness of Christ, so that Jesus meekly submitted to what was his mission. That’s one of the great lessons that comes out of this and in that he is also our example. He’s the example to us that we should meekly submit to whatever fulfils a righteousness approach to life. That is true but I think there’s also another reason shown here and that is Jesus was baptized as an act of identification with us. As a true example for us he must identify with us. We must be able to see an aspect of ourselves in him. And in a sense portray his as an example we should follow. Both in our live and ministry but also in our call to be baptized.
How could we possibly really see what God is like unless he came as a man, fully human, and, yet fully God. The prologue to John’s Gospel speaks at length about this. Now you may remember earlier how I laboured to explain earlier that there are three water baptisms. The baptism of repentance offered by John the Baptist, prior to the arrival of Jesus. The baptism of Jesus himself, to fulfil all righteousness, and our baptism today as believers which is a symbol of the remission of sins and our willingness to follow Him. But that third baptism, our baptism, is primarily a symbolic representation of that which has already occurred in our hearts when we accepted Christ as our saviour.
However, there is another baptism, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that it is the baptism of the Holy Spirit which places us into the body of Christ and equips us with Spiritual gifts (Holy Spirit gifts) I believe the Bible teaches that all believers are baptised by the spirit of God into the body of Christ and that they also need to be baptised in water. What is believers’ baptism? We’ve talked about John’s baptism to some degree. We talked about Jesus’ baptism as much as we can, but what’s believers’ baptism? Well, this isn’t going to be a great shock for most of you. I said, you know this believer’s baptism is a symbol that we have trusted Christ end it identifies us with those who have likewise trusted Christ. In one sense, it’s an act of identification. You trust Christ then you get baptized. If you will look closely in this passage, it says he came up out of water so I don’t think there’s any question, but that Jesus was immersed. Not sprinkled. Thankfully we have Roman Chapter six to explains all this and what believers’ baptism is all about.
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
(Romans 6: 1-6)
Baptism is when you’re put under the water because it is symbolic of the fact that the old person has died. That person no longer exists we are a new person in Christ and coming up out of the water is a picture that we are being raised spiritually to walk a new kind of life alive to God. Furthermore, baptism of a believer in water is about choosing to be identified with other people who have trusted Christ, and it is a picture of me being dead to old sinful life and alive to God. If you have not done that, I would suggest you consider it, because you need to be baptized as a believer, not just as a baby. If you’ve ever trusted in Christ as your saviour, you need, just like Jesus to meekly submit to baptism. In Acts 19 there were people who were baptized by John the Baptist who didn’t have believers’ baptism, because Christ the Messiah had not come yet, and they were baptized again. So, if you’ve not experienced believers’ baptism, in my estimation you should do.
My father was a Methodist by background, and I grew up in the Methodist church . So as an infant I was baptized in the Methodist Church by sprinkling. I had water sprinkled on my head 3 times, 1 for each member of the Trinity, sometimes people call it a christening and other times people called it infant baptism. As a young teenager I was saved in a Methodist church youth club but as far as baptism went, they said it was not necessary as I was all set for church membership because I have been baptised as an child and then as an adult had made a personal profession of faith. I won’t bore you with the details but I at the age of 30 I ended up going to a Baptist Church and as I attended services there. I became aware that through the understanding of what happened in the story of Jesus’ baptism, the same things I have tried to communicate to you good people today, that I too need to be baptised, this time as a believer. So, I have, in a sense, been baptized twice, in the Methodist church as an infant, and in then again as an adult believer. So, I got a double crack at baptism, and in fact we all do.