WWUTT 1913 The Baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:13-17)

We are probably just as baffled by Jesus' baptism as John the Baptist was. John said, I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me? But this was necessary to fulfill all righteousness when we understand the text.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in the Gospel of Matthew. This week we've been considering the ministry of John the Baptist as recorded in chapter 3. And this ministry comes to a climax today as we're reading about the baptism of Jesus in verses 13 -17, which I will read from the Legacy Standard Bible.

Hear the word of the Lord. Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan, coming to John to be baptized by him. But John tried to prevent him, saying, I have need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?

But Jesus answered and said to him, Permitted it this time. For in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he permitted him. And after being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water.

And behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And behold, there was a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

The Incarnation and Christ's Obedience on Our Behalf

You know, it was necessary for the Son of God to become incarnate and dwell among us. When we use that word incarnate, it means simply God as a human being. God who put on flesh and dwelt among us, as we read in John 1.

You hear in that word incarnate the word carnal, which means of the flesh, and in. So in the flesh. Jesus, who became man, that he might live a perfect life, becoming the perfect sacrifice to atone for our sins and reconcile us to God.

This had to be done. He had to become the God-man to reconcile God and man. In Philippians 2, verses 5 -11, we read what is called the Carmen Christi. Have this way of thinking in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of man, being found in appearance as a man.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God also highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. In this is demonstrated the wonderful love and grace of God. 2 Corinthians 5 -21, for our sake he became sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

God was under no obligation to save sinners. He has done this entirely as an act of grace toward us. And Jesus Christ doing this for us. It's not that the Father sends the Son against his will. The Son was glad to submit to the will of the Father in this, and so give his life for us.

In Galatians 2 -20, I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

And of course we know the Father's love for us in John 3 -16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. And whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. The Father and the Son demonstrating their love for us in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

And once again, as I said earlier, this was necessary. It had to happen for us to be saved. Not necessary that God had to do this. This is just what had to be done in order for us to be saved. But God freely chose to do this by his own will.

He was not obligated to have to save us. We needed to be saved. And the only way we could be saved is for God to give his Son incarnate, God putting on flesh and dwelling among us, becoming that perfect sacrifice.

Christ's Sinless Life and Fulfilled Righteousness

And it was more than just Jesus having to die. He also had to live and fulfill all of the righteous requirements of the law. The law which we had broken. The law that we were guilty of breaking. And because we had rebelled against God, the holy God who created the entire universe and made us in his image, yet we took that image and desecrated it with our sins, thus blaspheming against God in whose image we were made.

So what do we deserve? Our own destruction. We deserve to be separated from God forever. But God who is rich in mercy didn't leave us dead in our sins. He made us alive together with Christ. In order for us to be reconciled to God, in order for us to be forgiven those sins that we had committed against God, we had to have a substitute who perfectly fulfilled what we could not do.

And that is why the life of Jesus is every bit as important as his death. If all we needed was the sacrifice of Christ, if all we needed was his death, Jesus could have died in infancy. He could have been killed by Herod.

Why not? Herod kills the Christ child, the perfect child. He's already perfect. He's already sinless, even at that point. But the perfect child is slaughtered. His blood is spilled. There we go. There's a sacrifice made.

And all we have to do is believe in this and we'll have everlasting life. I mean, that's all it would have taken. But Jesus did not grow in stature. He would not have accomplished all of the righteous requirements of the law, thus becoming the spotless lamb to take away the sin of the world.

As John described him, also in the Gospel of John, chapter one, behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus becomes that sacrifice by his obedience, his submission to the Father.

And that's necessary for me to lay out here as we're coming to the baptism of Jesus, because that's the very conversation that Jesus and John have with one another. This is necessary to fulfill all righteousness.

It is fitting for us to do this, to fulfill all righteousness. So at the start of verse 13, once again, Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan, coming to John to be baptized by him. Remember, Galilee is in the north and that's where Nazareth is.

When we last saw Jesus in the narrative, it was the end of chapter two, when Joseph and Mary and the Christ child come back into the Holy Land after Herod had died. But they didn't want to settle back in Bethlehem or anywhere near Jerusalem because it was Herod's son that was now reigning in his place.

So they went back up to the town where Joseph and Mary had come from. Before they had journeyed down to Bethlehem, they were in Nazareth. So they settled back there. And as it says in verse 23, this fulfills what was spoken through the prophets that he shall be called a Nazarene.

So Nazareth, a little town up there in Galilee, Jesus comes down from Galilee to the place where John is baptizing. Now, we don't know how much time has transpired here. Matthew, for whatever reason, doesn't see any need to have to tell us that.

He doesn't tell us exactly how old Jesus is. We actually get that from the Gospel of Luke. So we know Jesus is about 30 here. But Matthew has not told us how much time has passed from the time that Jesus settles in Nazareth to when John the Baptist ministry begins, nor are we even told how long John the Baptist ministry has been going on.

Now, it probably wasn't very long. I don't think it was several years, but it was long enough, of course, to attract the attention of all kinds of people, including Herod, which comes back into the story, the Pharisees and the Sadducees who come to John to be baptized by him.

And then they receive that rebuke from John. He's got fame all across Judea. People are coming to him to be baptized, to hear him preach in the wilderness and to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins.

And so in the midst of all of this, Jesus comes to be baptized. Now, this baptism is not a private baptism. This is not just Jesus and John, and then the heavens open up and the Spirit of God descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove.

And, you know, maybe John the Baptist told somebody. So Matthew writes this down. There were probably hundreds of witnesses to this. One of the requirements for becoming an apostle, for becoming one of the twelve, one of the requirements was they had to have been at Jesus' baptism, at the baptism of John, all the way up to his ascension into heaven.

We read about that in Acts chapter one, where the disciples, the twelve in particular, are trying to decide who's going to fill this spot in place of Judas, who betrayed the Christ and then killed himself.

And the requirement was that whoever was going to replace Judas and fill in this twelfth spot had to have been present from the baptism of John to Jesus' ascension into heaven. And there were two men that qualified, Matthias and Justice.

So we know that all of the disciples were actually here. They were there listening to John the Baptist preach, seeing people be baptized. And here comes Jesus in the midst of the crowd. To be baptized by John.

And John's reaction to this is probably like our reaction to it. You know, maybe when you're reading this story and you're wondering, why is Jesus being baptized? Because we read that John the Baptist's ministry begins with him preaching, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And we read also that all of Jerusalem was going out to him and all Judea and all the district around the Jordan. And they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins. The Pharisees and the Sadducees come.

John the Baptist rebukes them and says, you brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance. We've seen this over and over in association with John's baptism.

And just the short chapter that we've read here, this was a baptism for the repentance of sins. So why is Jesus who is sinless coming to John to be baptized? We would therefore be just as baffled by John and be asking this question.

You come to be baptized by me. I need to be baptized by you. And any one of us probably would have said the same thing to Jesus. I need to be baptized by you. Why do you need to be baptized? Well, there are two things that we can draw from this.

Two reasons why Jesus needed to be baptized. First of all, it shows that by his baptism, Jesus fully identifies with us as our representative. He had to do the same things that we do. And if God's requirement is for us to be baptized, then for Jesus to fulfill all righteousness and to be in obedience to the father on our behalf.

Because, you know, again, as we read from 2 Corinthians 5 21, his righteousness is imputed to us. So in order for that righteousness to be imputed, Jesus has to do all of the things that we have to do.

And so Jesus is baptized just as we have been committed or have been commanded rather to be baptized. And even here, this being a baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus doesn't have to repent of any sins.

He's sinless. But he is obedient to the father on our behalf for us. So that's the first reason. That's the first reason why Jesus has to be baptized. The second reason is because by this act of obedience, Jesus shows that our salvation would not have been possible by his death alone argument I made earlier.

So it's also by his life that we are saved by his death. He atones for our sins by his life. His righteousness is imputed to us so that we may live in the righteousness of Christ. When the father looks at us, he does not see the sinful wretch that we are deserving of wrath and judgment.

What he sees when he looks at us is the righteousness of his own son. We are declared righteous before God by faith in Jesus for his righteousness has been imputed to us. Or another way that this is said, we've been clothed in his righteousness.

He has taken off our soiled garments. He has put on his righteous robes. We wear his righteousness. And the father receives us and loves us with the same affection that he has for his own son. So it was necessary for Jesus to be baptized to demonstrate that he fully identifies with us, his people.

And secondly, to demonstrate that salvation would not be possible by his death alone. We've broken God's commandments. So there must be full obedience to the commandments of God. And that's what Jesus does.

Even to the point of being baptized as we have been commanded to be baptized. So John's baptism was a command that God gave his people. And so it had to be obeyed even by the son. Had Jesus not been baptized, there would have been something lacking in his righteousness and he would not have been able to save us.

So Jesus says to John, permit it at this time for in this way, it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. And the scripture says that John permitted him in verse 16, after being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him.

And behold, there was a voice out of the heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. All three members of the Trinity right here, the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. I honestly cannot understand how anyone denies the doctrine of the Trinity just based on the narrative of the baptism of Jesus alone, especially modalism.

You know, modalism is that idea that God is one and sometimes he's a father, sometimes he's a son, and sometimes he's a Holy Spirit. So he'll manifest himself as different modes. Hence why that heresy is referred to as modalism.

But here he's not sometimes a father, sometimes a son, and sometimes the Holy Spirit. They're all three right there, independent presences, not Jesus jumping into the father's role and saying, this is my beloved son.

And then coming down as the Holy Spirit form and then taking back on the son of God form, God incarnate, you know, it's, I don't even know how you get there from here. I would be curious to know that.

I've never looked that up. What would a modalist say about this particular passage? But we see clearly demonstrated all three members of the Trinity. God is one. He's not three gods. He's one God, three persons.

And the reason why that concept is so difficult for us to understand how God can be one and yet three persons and how all three persons are co-equal, co-eternal, without division in their essence or being, we can't wrap our minds around that concept.

And the reason why we can't understand it is because we're not God. All we've got are these finite human bodies that we live in. Me and my wife and my kids, we're one family. We're seven people. But even that is a, it's a terrible example of the Trinity.

You can't get to the doctrine of the Trinity from there. Even when you, when you try to take that picture of, well, it's me and my wife and God, and you know, that's kind of a picture of the Trinity. No, that doesn't work either.

There is no good comparison to the Trinity. It is absolutely unique in all of existence. There is nothing like God, no one like God, one God and three persons. And yet he's still one God, not three gods.

That is going to be a baffling concept to us until we get to heaven. And we will see him as he is because we will be made to be like him. Meaning we will have a perfect imperishable form, like he is perfect and imperishable according to first John three, two.

So on that day, when we enter into glory and we dwell with him forever and worship God around the throne, then we will see and fully be able to comprehend and understand the concept of the Trinity. But right now, these things continue to be very mysterious to us.

Nonetheless, we do see the son's obedience to the father being accepted by this baptism and the father making him known to John the Baptist and the crowd of people who are there. This is my beloved son, hundreds of witnesses hearing the voice of God from heaven.

And it is announced that the Messiah has come. So our baptism, whenever we are baptized, as said in Romans chapter six, we are buried with Christ in our sins and we are risen with him to walk in newness of life.

He who has fulfilled all righteousness on our behalf. So let us walk in his righteousness. Heavenly father, thank you for what we've read here today. Thank you for sending your son to fulfill all righteousness that by faith in Jesus, we would have our sins forgiven and we are given his righteousness that we may be accepted by you, reconciled to God, made a fellow heir of his eternal kingdom and promised a place where we will dwell with you forever in glory.

Keep us in obedience today unto you that we may demonstrate by our lives the righteousness of Christ that we've been clothed in. As we read in Psalm 23, lead me in paths of righteousness for your namesake.

It's in Jesus name we pray.

Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.