Matthew 5

Baptism

Matthew 3:13-17 “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.””

Johns hesitation

We are finally getting into where Jesus is really arriving on the scene as an adult here in Matthew. We get to see how Jesus decides to begin His public ministry after spending thirty years on earth already and when He does decide to step forward what does He do? He goes to be baptized by His cousin. This savior of the world, the sinless perfect man is going to get baptized by the man preaching repentance then baptism. Well Jesus had nothing to repent of. We see that John had the same hesitation and questioning that we may have now. He says what do you mean you want me to baptize you, you should be baptizing me instead.

By seeing John hesitate and question Jesus we actually learn something very important to keep in mind. Even someone who had a great spiritual life who was a teacher of the Word and led people to Christ did not know all of Gods plans. No matter how close to God we are we will never fully understand Him and when we don’t understand it’s ok to ask questions. John asks him why He is doing this and do we see Jesus get angry? Does Jesus rebuke him for having a question? No, He tells John what He is thinking without chastizing him. Jesus is not upset that John is confused He knew that He would not understand it before He came out there that day.

The same is true for us. God is not upset with us when we do not understand His plan. He knows that we are going to get lost and confused sometimes trying to find our way through life. What will make God upset is not asking Him for clarification. When we don’t understand the plan we need to be like John and ask God whats going on. We need to take the time to seek the answers and try to understand what God has in store for us instead of continuing on in a path of confusion.

Why was Jesus Baptized

So, this does leave us with the question then, why was Jesus baptized? If Jesus was sinless for His entire life then why would He have needed to be baptized by John? What good would it do Him? Well first let’s look at His answer to John again.

Matthew 3:15 “But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented.”

Well there you have it. That should clear it all up for you right? No, I am sure many of us are still lost on why. I think if I was John in this situation I would have been quite confused still as to why I was baptizing my savior. So, what does Jesus mean in His answer to John? Well that is actually a debated point in scripture. We aren’t one-hundred percent sure of the exact reasoning behind this but there are four different things that we can look at to get an idea of what the reason is. I personally believe that it is a combination of all four of them while others may think it is one or the other. I will leave it up to you to decide if yo agree with me in it being a little of all or simple one or two of them.

To Identify With Sinners

The first possible reason that we will look at is to identify with sinners. Let’s look at some prophecy really quick.

Isaiah 53:12 “Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”

It was prophesied that Jesus would be numbered with the transgressors. He would be with them as one of them. So, when Jesus comes and is baptized with the rest of the repentant sinners He is making Himself one of them. At the start of His ministry He may have wanted people to have something they could feel connected with him about. Think about it. Many people witnessed this baptism on this day and were also baptized by the same man that day. Countless others had been baptized by John the baptist and now they could have something that would tie them together with Jesus so they would be more likely to hear His message.

Even now in todays world, all new believers are baptized and from the start have something that ties them to Christ. We are baptized as Christ was baptized so it gives us something to hold on to as an identifier of His family.

To Set an Example

Which brings us to our next possibility. Some argue that He was baptized simply to give us an example of what we are to do. Later on at the end of Matthew Jesus gives the command to go and baptize people all over the world. So, possibly Jesus wanted to set the precedent from the beginning. He wanted it to be clear that as a believer in Christ He wants you to be baptized in repentance of your sins.

Up until this point the baptisms that had been taking place were done so by John and Jesus did not have anything to do with them. He had not publicly said yet that if you wanted to follow after Him the John was right and you should be baptized. This may have been His way of showing support for what John was doing and setting an example for believers to follow for thousands of years.

To Paint a Picture

Our third possibility is that He wanted to paint a picture for what was coming in His ministry. Often times when we do baptisms for people this is something we tell them before going into the water so many of you may have hear this before. When we do baptisms today we consider it symbolic of what Christ did an what we are doing. We are burying our old selves saying that our old self is gone and then we are being raised to walk with Christ in our new life. Going under is symbolic of our death in our old life and our burial of it and then hopefully the pastor brings us back up and we get to symbolize walking a new life with Him. Christ very well could have been doing something similar here. Some speculate that He wanted to start His ministry with a foreshadowing of his eventual death on the cross, burial in the tomb, and ressurection three days later. This is consistent to the rest of His ministry as He was often dropping hints and foreshadowing through His teachings and actions.

The Starting Pistol

The final possibility I will mention is this is a sort of starting pistol for the ministry of Jesus. Well in all actuality it is less of a pistol and more of an atomic bomb with the magnitude of what happens here. All of the reasons previously mentioned account for part of his arrival as a minister on the scene here, but what comes after He is baptized is the real show stopper.

We need to understand something first. In the Old Testament we saw quite often either God speaking directly to people or sending a prophet to speak on His behalf. This was something that the Israelites would realize they took for granted. Remember the prophecy that we talked about a few weeks ago? God said he would take His hand from Israel and they would be left on their own until the savior comes. Well for four hundred years God sent no word to His people. He did not speak directly to anyone and He did not even send a prophet to guide them. He went total radio silence.

Then John steps into the picture. John was the first hint that God was opening back up to them. John was a prophet of God who came to speak to the people for God. But there may have been some still who did not believe. Anyone can claim they have a message from God. I am sure that many people tried to claim that in the four hundred years that God had went silent on them. So, here we see God breaking the silence in an indisputable way. When Jesus comes up from the water the heavens are opened and the Spirit of God descends like a dove on Him and God the Father announces that this is His son with whom He is pleased.

Now there are some debates on who exactly was able to see and hear all of this. Some believe only Jesus could witness it, others believe Him and John could, I personally believe that any who were around at the time would have heard the voice and seen the Spirit. God is a logical God. There is reason behind everything He does. Why would he do such a spectacular display for only Jesus who is God and a man who is already convinced He is God to see? That makes no sense, but for God to publicly break the four hundred year silence by announcing the arrival of the promised Messiah? That make logical sense to me.

God finally broke the silence and is opening the door for people to hear from Him and gain His guidance again. This is a spectacular starting point for Jesus’ ministry and is made even more special by the apperance here of not just Jesus, but The Father, The Son, and The Spirit. Without getting too bogged down in theological debates, there are many people who claim that the Trinity does not exist. That God is one being only and that when He was on earth He was no in Heaven. That each of these names are merely different names for the same God. And while yes we worship God as having three distinct beings. This moment in scripture proves this by showing us the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all present at the same time each through a different form. The Father is a voice from Heaven, the Son is the man Jesus, and the Spirit is descending like a dove. This makes it clear to us that each is unique and seperate.

This causes a lot of confusion for many people who believe in Christ though. How can we say that we worship one God if He is three? That is a great question and honestly if anyone ever tells you they totally get it then I would say that they are either mistaken or a liar. The trinity can be very confusing to understand. The best way that I can explain it is through a necklace that I wear very often. It is called a trinity knot. On this metal knot we can see that it is made from one continuous strand of metal looping through to create three distinct points while remaining one single piece.

God works in a similar fashion. Each of the three persons of the trinity share in one nature, that is the nature of God. By this I mean that each one as all of the characteristics that make up who God is. He is all knowing all powerful and all present. The term persons here does not mean that they are seperate beings, but rather denotes how they relate to each other and two us. The father creates us, the son redeems us, and the spirit changes us.

Ultimately it is hard to wrap your head around. Even just to explain this to you I had to do extensive study to refresh my understanding on the Trinity before I dared to teach it to anyone. Wrapping our finite minds around the infinite God of the Universe is an impossible task to totally accomplish though through understanding what we can of the Trinity it can help us understand God better as a whole so that we can form a better relationship with Him.

The important thing here though is that in this passage God clearly reveals to us that the Trinity is the truth so whether we understand it fully or not is not important only that we accept it.