Have you ever pondered why Jesus was baptized by John? What does His baptism mean? What significance does it have for Christian believers today?
John burst on the wilderness with a clear message leading to “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” People from all walks of life—Pharisees, Sadducees, tax collectors, soldiers, and the common people—flocked to hear him. They came “from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River” (Matt. 3:5, 6).1 Certainly John was ushering in spiritual renewal and reformation in preparation for the Messiah.
John’s message of revival reached all the towns of Judea and Galilee, including Nazareth. Ellen White states, “Tidings of the wilderness prophet and his wonderful announcement spread throughout Galilee. The message reached the peasants in the remotest hill towns, and the fisher folk by the sea and in these simple, earnest hearts found its truest response. In Nazareth, it was told in the carpenter shop that had been Joseph’s, and One recognized the call. His time had come. Turning from His daily toil, He bade farewell to His mother and followed in the steps of His countrymen who were flocking to the Jordan.”2
And Jesus came to John to be baptized. But “John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness’ ” (verses 13–15).
Matthew records heaven’s approval of Jesus’ baptism with a series of divine acts. “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. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’ ” (verses 16, 17). John adds his own testimony: “ ‘I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God’ ” (John 1:32–34). Notice the presence of the Trinity in the baptismal scene: Jesus comes out of the water, the voice of God declares that Jesus is God’s Son, and the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus as a dove, empowering Him for His mission. And the mission of Jesus, as announced by the Baptist, is to be the Lamb of God in fulfillment of God’s plan for the salvation of humankind.
But why was Jesus, the Sinless One, needing to be baptized? Here was a crowd of sinners who indeed needed to seek for the forgiveness of sins and be baptized as a sign of new life. But Jesus? John himself was puzzled and declared, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
“How could he, a sinner, baptize the Sinless One? And why should He, who needed no repentance, submit to a rite that was a confession of guilt to be washed away?”3 Answering these questions is essential to understand fully the meaning of Jesus’ baptism.
The meaning of Jesus’ baptism
When John hesitated to baptize Jesus, the latter urged the Baptist to go ahead with the baptism for “ ‘it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness’ ” (Matt. 3:15). What does “to fulfill all righteousness” mean?
First, “fulfill[ing] all righteousness” suggests a covenant relationship to follow God’s will4 and, in this case, a relationship between the Father and the Son to implement the salvation plan for humanity (John 3:15–17). The gospel of John refers to Jesus’ commitment to follow God’s mission. Jesus declared, “ ‘I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent’ ” (John 5:36–38). The Son had a mission given by the Father to fulfill for the redemption of humanity, and in that sense, He was fulfilling all righteousness.
From the outset of His ministry, Jesus conducted Himself as a Servant of the Lord (Isa. 42:1) who surrendered His will to the will of His Father, first in the works He did (John 4:34), then in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:36–45), and finally on the cross (Luke 23:46). When John announced the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” he was proclaiming the universal mission of Jesus—that His death would result in redemption from sin. The baptism of Jesus is, in a way, the introduction of the Lamb of God—and hence His mission of salvation—that will deal with the problem of sin and provide a redemptive way to the sinners He came to save.5
Thus, Jesus’ baptism clearly lays out Christ’s intention to follow the Father’s plan and way of salvation even when that plan would eventually lead to the slaughter of the Lamb of God. He had no other option except to follow God’s will. He made this clear in His dialogue with the Pharisees. Although He is the pre-existent and Eternal God, He followed the will of His Father. The Pharisees “did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me’ ” (John 8:27, 28).
Second, to fulfill all righteousness relates to the fulfillment of the symbolism of the Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7). John’s proclamation that Jesus is “ ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ ” (John 1:29) says, prophetically, that the paschal lamb of the Passover that signified the liberation from Egypt has now entered into history in the Person of Jesus whose death on the cross would deal with the problem of sin in a sense of finality. Jesus is the ultimate Passover Lamb. The historical connection and conclusion that John draws between the Passover of Exodus and the Passover sacrifice of the cross cannot be missed.
Third, to fulfill all righteousness must also be understood as a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophetic declaration that the Messiah would indeed be a Suffering Servant whose life would bear humanity’s sin, as foretold in Isaiah 53.
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth (Isa. 53:4–7).
From these three-pronged meanings of “fulfill[ing] all righteousness”— that is, to fulfill the covenantal relationship in the Trinity that through the Son will be the plan of redemption, to assume the role of the Lamb of God in the Son’s incarnate state, and to be the Suffering Servant, bearing the sins of the world—we can begin to understand the depth of the meaning of the baptism of Jesus. He did not need to be baptized like the rest of the crowd that flocked to Jordan, but He chose to be baptized to inaugurate God’s salvation scheme and the kingdom principle—that is, without the Cross, there can be no salvation and kingdom. Thus in His baptism, Jesus anticipated His suffering and death to secure “righteousness for all” in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. “After the suffering of his soul, / he will see the light of life and be satisfied; / by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, / and he will bear their iniquities” (verse 11). Jesus came to fulfill His mission as the innocent Servant of the Lord. That mission involved His vicarious sacrifice and the full involvement of the Father and the Holy Spirit in the process. Thus, by undergoing baptism, Jesus anticipated His own baptism of death by which He secured “righteousness for all.”
Therefore, the baptism of Jesus is the fundamental demonstration of Jesus’ anticipation of His suffering and, at the same time, the assurance of substitutionary sacrifice for sin. As Ralph Earle suggested, “[T]he incarnation is the greatest of all miracles. Christ’s baptism was a prelude of the Cross.”6
The meaning for Christian believers
If baptism had a profound meaning and anticipation for Christ’s redemptive mission, what is the meaning of baptism for the believer? First, a good place to begin is Paul’s teaching on baptism: “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” (Rom. 6:3, 4).
Paul gives a clear message. Through baptism, we are being baptized into the death of Jesus—not in the sense that we have anything to do for our redemption from sin. That is a task accomplished by Jesus and Him alone. What Paul means is that we renounce and give up the ways of sin, and rise again to live a life of righteousness by the resurrection power of the new life in Christ Jesus.
Second, another important meaning of baptism for the Christian is found in the book of Acts where Philip confronts the Ethiopian ruler with the meaning of Isaiah’s Suffering Servant portrayal (Isa. 53:7, 8). Philip interprets Isaiah to the Ethiopian and shows how Isaiah’s prophecy was recently fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus as an atonement and victory over sin— events with which the Ethiopian ruler was no doubt made familiar during his recent sojourn in Jerusalem but could not see the divine import behind those events. When Philip made the connection and presented the good news about Jesus (Acts 8:35), the Ethiopian was moved by the divine intervention in human history, and he asked a most personal and profound question: “ ‘Why shouldn’t I be baptized?’ ” (Acts 8:36). The question indicates that the Ethiopian was familiar with the meaning of baptism, that it is a symbolic entry into the Messianic kingdom and constitutes an open acceptance of God’s remedy for sins. While the ruler was familiar with the meaning of baptism, that familiarity made its profound link and identification with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus after Philip’s Spirit-filled Bible study. Hence the Ethiopian’s seeking baptism and Philip performing the act. Both the ruler’s seeking and Philip’s bestowing clearly show that baptism to the Christian means, first and foremost, the unreserved acceptance of the substitutionary death of Jesus for one’s sins.
Third, the apostle Paul further adds to the richness of baptism when he declares, “If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom. 6:5–7). Because Jesus Christ is the substitutionary Sacrifice on the cross, the believer has new life in Jesus Christ. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). Therefore “count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11).
This reference to a new life was already mentioned by Jesus in His conversation with Nicodemus. “Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit’ ” (John 3:5). Here is a declaration pointing to baptism as a symbol of a regenerated life, with such a regeneration possible only through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, as Jesus Himself testified, “ ‘Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life’ ” (verses 14, 15).
Fourth, baptism also provides for the believer a public opportunity to affirm the new covenant relationship with Jesus Christ. “In him,” says Paul, “you were also circumcised, in putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:11, 12). Note the argument of parallelism the apostle makes between the circumcision of the flesh, the old sign of the covenant, and the circumcision of the heart. The old was made by human hands, the new was “done by Christ.” For the Israelites, circumcision was indeed a sacred sign of the covenant inherited through Abraham (Gen. 17:9–14); but now for spiritual Israel, the church, introduced as “Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29), baptism is presented as taking the place of circumcision. Thus, baptism inherits all the richness of the symbolism of circumcision, and indeed is not circumcision of the flesh but circumcision of the heart (Rom. 2:28, 29).
Finally, baptism is also a symbol of entrance into the church, the body of Christ. The Great Commission of Jesus is for the disciples to “ ‘go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ ” (Matt. 28:19). The phrase “make disciples” points to the mission of the church as a continuation of Jesus’ mission. As a result, the apostles will include in that mission, baptizing and teaching that reflects the characteristic of those who become disciples.7 The “baptizing” (Matt. 28:19) characterization marks that the believer follows the example of Jesus’ baptism and accepts His death and resurrection as the remedy for the forgiveness of sin and the assurance of new life in Jesus.
It became clear not long after the giving of the Great Commission that baptism became an imperative to enter into the life of the church. Witness the Pentecostal outpouring when, under the power of the Holy Spirit, Peter proclaimed to the masses in Jerusalem what they should do to experience the forgiveness of sins and enjoy the joy of new life in Christ: “ ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’ ” (Acts 2:38; cf. Acts 16:31–33). One must not fail to note how Peter links in the Pentecostal sermon the death and resurrection of Christ, the need for repentance and baptism, the forgiveness of sins, the receiving of the Holy Spirit, and the baptism of three thousand people. The inauguration of the church—the community of the redeemed—began with the baptism of those who believed in the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ and repented of their sins.
Conclusion
The historical event of the baptism of Jesus is not simply a routine event, but has tremendous import for the understanding of God’s plan of salvation. It reveals the covenantal relationship within the Trinity for the fulfillment of the plan of salvation, and affirms that Jesus, as the true Paschal Lamb, set on His journey to the cross to deal with the problem of sin. The baptism of Jesus was in anticipation of His sacrifice and portrays the symbolism of His death and resurrection through which a new life in Jesus becomes available to those who believe in Him. The baptism is a new sign of the circumcision of the heart, a sign of the covenant of reconciliation between God and His people, and is a continual reminder of the way new disciples are added to the church daily when they are baptized following the formula given by Jesus, “ ‘baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ ” (Matt. 28:19).
1 Unless otherwise noted, all scripture is quoted from the
New International Version of the Bible.
2 Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, CA:
Pacifi c Press Pub. Assn., 1940), 109.
3 Ibid., 110.
4 Gottlob Schrenk, “δικαιοσÃÂνη,” in Theological Dictionary of
the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey W.
Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964), 2:198.
5 John Phillips, Exploring the Gospel of Matthew, The John
Philips Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel
Publications, 1999), 59.
6 Ralph Earle, Matthew, vol. 6, Beacon Bible Commentary
(Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1964), 53.
7 D. A. Carson, Matthew, vol. 8, The Expositor Bible
Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), 595–597.
See also Gene Getz and Joe Wall, Effective Church Growth
Strategies (Nashville, TN: Nelson Reference & Electronic,
2000), 14.
