SLTJ:Ch 20

copyright, L.D. Underwood 2011

John the Baptist and the Baptism of Jesus

Considering the life of John the Baptist, we will examine some general information from several passages here in the gospels, but then we will examine the third chapter of Luke’s gospel. Jesus made a tremendous evaluation of John the Baptist when he made the statement, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Mt 11:11, KJV). We can think of him as the last of the Old Testament prophets. Obviously he was not a founder of the Baptist church, but he was a cousin of Jesus, the son of Zechariahs and Elizabeth. Incidentally, his youth is even more obscure than that of Jesus. The only statement we have in the gospels concerning his youth is found in Luke 1:80 where we have the very simple statement made: “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel” (Lk 1:80, KJV). We know he was cut from the same pattern as the prophet Elijah. In fact we are told in Luke 1:17 that he came in the spirit and power of Elijah. If we stop to think about these two men, we find some very interesting similarities. They both appear suddenly upon the scene of prophetic ministry. They both were prophets of judgment. They both dressed alike in fashions that befit their ministries, that is the clothing they wore were for climatic reasons, not for dramatic sensationalism. Both of these were non writing prophets. During this entire inter-Biblical period, they had their spiritual gifts to thus help them focus on a specific area of ministry for the church.

John declares, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Mt 1:3, KJV). The expression “with the Holy Spirit and with fire” has several possibilities. Some see it as a reference to tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost or as perhaps illustrating the illuminating power of the Spirit; or even the trials and tribulations of Christians. That is, “baptized with the Spirit and with fire” which would make us hesitate for just a moment when we ask for the Lord to send the fire; which fire we are talking about? It could also could refer to the punishment of the wicked in judgment, which seems to fit the context here, that perhaps it is a baptism of spirit for the righteous and the baptism of fire for the wicked. There are several different ways which that expression can be taken.

This was not a new rite or ceremony originating with John. We know that the Jews baptized their proselytes by immersion, which was a sign of great humiliation. The Jews did experience ceremonial cleansing, that was quite common and even emphasized by the law. But in the Old Testament, usually a person would plunge himself, like Namon for example, beneath the waters of that river. Later on in history the proselyte baptism was practiced where you were initiated into the Jewish faith and this of course did not take place until about the third century AD. That is, we don’t have any intertestamental period, any proselyte baptism, but we do have an imitation of Christian baptism that occurs two or three centuries after the church was here. But the baptism of John, which he is stressing was an act that was performed only once. His baptism was called a baptism of repentance. A baptism characterized by repentance. So it is not that he baptized with the result that people repented, but he baptized only those who had already repented, and that baptism was a sign they had repented.

All four gospel accounts record the baptism of Jesus. Therefore we know it was a strategic and significant episode in the life of our Lord. A hinge on which his whole earthly life turned. Yet there is something strange about this baptism of our Lord. We saw last time that a remarkable awakening, spiritually had broken out in Israel and literally thousands of people were leaving their homes and jobs and families to stream out of the cities out to the desert area to listen to this strange remarkable man, John the Baptist, this rugged prophet that he was. They came with the torment of their guilt, feeling totally inadequate; lacking as sense of accepting before God. And we saw that John was offering good-news; a way out of their dilemma. The people responded in great numbers. John baptized all who repented—those who acknowledged their guilt, those who sought forgiveness of sins. As we saw, this was the emphasis of John’s ministry. He granted baptism as a sign of the cleansing of God only to those who genuinely acknowledged their need before God by confessing their sin. There were thousands of them.

Yet when Jesus came out of Galilee to John to be baptized, John protested. According to Matthew’s account, John said, “But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?” (Mt 3:14, KJV). That is remarkable statement, especially if we remember that John didn’t know at this time, that Jesus was the messiah. In fact the gospel of John tells us that John the Baptist knew this only when he saw the spirit of God ascending upon Jesus, and remaining upon him, because that was the sign the God had given to John the Baptist. Then he knew this was the one who was to come—the one he had been announcing. Now obviously John had known Jesus from boyhood days. They were cousins. If we can’t find fault with our relatives, then with whom can we find fault? Again it is remarkable that when this relative comes, John says to him, “You don’t need to be baptized.” Why are you coming to me? Apparently there was nothing in the life of Jesus that John had seen that required repentance, or confession of sin.

Well, then why was Jesus baptized? Certainly not for the same reason that people are baptized today. Now sometimes preachers use incorrect language and they don’t speak theologically. Sometimes preachers will incorrectly speak in the baptismal tank of “following the Lord in baptism”; as though our baptism is a carbon copy of his. But Jesus had no sin, and therefore he needed no baptism. Yet he was baptized by John. Why? Therein lies an interesting tale. Let me suggest first of all that Matthew’s gospel gives us the response of Jesus to that question. Matthew 3:15, Jesus says, “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him” (KJV). In other words, Jesus submitted to baptism in full obedience to his Heavenly Father. We saw earlier in Galatians 4:4 that he was born under the law, fulfilling all of God’s righteous requirements. One of those requirements was circumcision. He followed that. His presentation in the temple; now he is being baptized. These are all elements prescribed by the law. Yet there was no need to put away the body of flesh in his case. There was no need for deliverance, because he was apart from sin. Yet he was fully obeying the Father: “it is proper to fulfill all righteousness.”

Secondly, by submitting to this rite, Jesus also placed his stamp of approval on the ministry of John the Baptist. He demonstrated his oneness with John’s call of repentance to the nation. And from that time on, Jesus took up the cry of John, and he also said “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 4:17). He authenticated John’s ministry, he linked himself with John’s ministry and this must have been the crowning peak of John’s ministry. Christ was giving this faithful forerunner the honor of baptizing into public office, the Messiah he had been announcing. Soon after this time, John was going to be silenced by imprisonment, and later by execution. But what Jesus was doing now was endorsing John and his reform movement. Thirdly, Christ’s baptism also marked his inauguration into public ministry. Here was an act of self-dedication that marked the beginning of his preaching, teaching, healing, ministry. Under the Levitical law, all priests would be consecrated at the age of 30. We read about this in the fourth chapter of the book of Numbers. This ordination ceremony for priests at age 30, consisted of two parts. First of all, there was the washing; secondly the anointing. Jesus was now about 30 years of age. His baptism was a sign of consecration to public service as a prophet, priest, and king. Baptism fulfilled the washing requirement, and the descent of the dove marked his spiritual anointing. He is being inaugurated into public ministry as a prophet, a priest, and a king.

I see this also as an empowering moment. Jesus was given the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now obviously this was not the first time Jesus had the Spirit. We must not think of it that way, because it is recorded by John the Baptist that he was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. Certainly if that was true of John, then that was also true of Jesus. He certainly lived by the spirit during those quiet years he was grown up in Nazareth. He submitted himself as we saw to his parents; he grew up in the carpenter’s shop; he learned the trade. All through those uneventful days, living in ordinary circumstances in that little village, Jesus lived by the power of the Spirit in his life. But now, when the spirit comes upon him, like a dove, he is given a new manifestation of the Spirit in terms of power. He is anointed by God, through the Spirit with power. Power to meet the demands of the ministry upon which he is about to launch.

Notice in passing, that the symbol of this kind of power given to him is mentioned in terms of a dove. We know football teams sometimes use birds as emblems. Signs of their power and ability, so we have Falcons, and the Eagles, and even the Ducks. But I have never heard yet of a team known as the Doves. No team would use that kind of harmless dove as a symbol of its power and strength, because a dove is gentle; it is a non-threatening bird. Its one that does not resist or fight back. Yet amazingly enough it is irresistible. That is the power that Jesus is describing; the power of love. The power that can be beaten and battered down and even put to death, and yet can rise again until it wins the day. The amazing love that Jesus released. That is why it has often been said that love is the greatest force in the world today. It doesn’t break apart; it doesn’t destroy—it gathers; it heals. Love operates only through humility. It’s not beat our way to the top of the heap. Its not trample others down to achieve what we want. It’s not might makes right and every man for himself. It’s not survival of the fittest, it is the survival of the humblest. That is why Jesus says, “If any man should be first, let him become servant of all” (Mt 20:26).

Peter puts it very precisely in his epistle when he says, “Humble yourselves therefore unto the mighty hand of God, that in due time, He may exalt you” (1 Pe 5:6). Humility brings all the power of God and all the love of Christ into our lives. This is an empowering moment for Jesus. Not only that, but Christ’s baptism is an illustration of the goal of his ministry. He was not only anointed for preaching, but he was also being anointed for his passion. That is his baptism mirrored the event of the cross. In that experience, he foresaw his death, burial, and resurrection. For the dove is a bird of sacrifice. This highlight experience typifies in a prophetic sense, his future sacrifice upon the cross.

The true spiritual meaning of Christ’s baptism goes far beyond these elements which we have already described; far beyond the ceremony with water. Because, supremely, his baptism involves identification. The word ‘baptism’ has an older meaning that emersion—that is the probably the most common meaning today. We can possibly think that a thousand years from now, if there is still life on this planet, that there may be people here in this country who never have never heard of the fact that bottles were once made out of glass; and therefore if they heard about a bottleneck, they might think it only belonged to traffic jams; or places where construction was fouled-up on a factory. Someone at that point would have to teach them that in the early days of the twentieth century, those early primitive days, before they made all containers out of wax paper or plastic, that they used to use glass of all things. Such bottles had narrow necks where the liquid would gurgle out. They took that idea of a narrow place and they applied it to a narrow place in the road. So, way back in those primitive days, bottle-necks were in bottles.

Five hundred years before Christ, there was no immersion. But everybody used the word ‘baptism’ for the process of turning pink clothe into blue clothe; yellow clothe into black clothe. It was the process of dyeing. The Baptists was the “dye-er.” John the Baptist would have been called John the dye-er. Undoubtedly in the city of Athens 500 years before Christ, we would have seen Theophilus the Baptist; that meant someone who changed the identity of the cloth.

There of course is the true spiritual meaning of baptism, that I think has been obscured by centuries of warfare and debate as to whether the water should be applied to the person, or the person should be put into the water; whether it should be three times forward, or three times backward; or plunged in or sprinkled or poured, or any other kind of option we want to add. As far as I am concerned, the methods of baptism don’t count for anything. Denominations have been founded on baptism by immersion, or baptism by sprinkling or pouring; and there have been splits among the Pennsylvania Dutch as whether to be baptized three times facing forward, or three times head backwards. It seems so utterly absurd that man is so addicted to splitting hairs on unimportant things in a way that will give glory to his mentality—because baptism is a symbol of something that happens within. Yet we have splits over the symbols and fail to get the message—the core meaning of baptism.

When we think of this word ‘baptism’ think of its true meaning as being identification. Our identification in baptism is our identification into the whole work of Jesus Christ. But Christ’s identification was an identification with humanity, when the Lord of Glory was becoming flesh for us. Jesus took his place among sinners, associating himself with us, and therefore he could acclaim the fact that I am one with you, apart from sin. But that he had no sins of his own of which to repent, Jesus was to be numbered with the transgressors. We are like paupers who have accumulated so many debts, that we can’t pay. Those debts are our sins. But when Jesus came he took all of those mortgages; all of those notes that we couldn’t meet and he endorsed them with his own name, and thereby said he intended to pay them fully. He who needed no repentance became one with those who did need repentance in order that the righteousness of God might be fulfilled in them, through him. The Jews would have understood the choosing of a lamb. When John the Baptist ultimately looked around and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). That language of choosing a lamb was as common to the Jews as the language of baseball is to us in this country; especially during world series week. Commonly, every year, every family had to take a lamb. They had to identify it, they had to examine it for it to properly be the Passover lamb. If that lamb had a broken leg or a scratch on its ear, or some torn place on its flesh or some deformity, it was put aside until they could get a lamb that was without spot and without blemish. They would take that lamb into the house for three days, look it over carefully, examine it and scrutinize it and the ultimately they would kill it.

So when John the Baptist came, he knew he was to pick out the lamb. He said, “There comes one after me who was before me, whose shoes I am not even worthy to unloose” (Jn 1:27). He must have looked at many a person a second time. I wonder, could that be he? Is that the one who is the messiah? Perhaps some noble Pharisee, some person magnificent in his physical appearance. Then John would see him strike at a child and say “get away from me.” John would turn away and say, “That can’t be the lamb. There is a flaw there, there is the mark of sin.” But on this particular occasion, under the eternal urge of the Holy Spirit that was upon him, John had the eyes of his spirit open and he saw Jesus Christ, and he said, “Behold the lamb of God.” He identified him as the one who was to come. Jesus said, “Suffer me to be identified, to be baptized.” John retorted, “I need to be identified by you.” But no, Jesus was being identified as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Just as a Jew in picking a lamb could tell there was no scratch in the skin, no broken bone. Of course, they couldn’t tell if there was a tumor inside, or some kind of internal problem within that lamb. So in the same way John could point to Jesus and say, “Behold the lamb of God.” But he couldn’t see within Jesus. At the very moment when Jesus came away from the water, the Holy Spirit descended in form of a dove upon him. And a voice from Heaven said, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17).

That must have been a marvelous word. The very voice of God speaking so that men could hear. John had identified Christ as the lamb. That was an external identification. But now God, looking upon the heart of Jesus, speaks from heaven and says, “Yes, this is my lamb, my beloved son in whom I find all my delight.” Notice by the way, in Matthew’s gospel the statement is made as a testimony to those who are watching the scene. “This, this one is my beloved son.” But if you read Mark’s gospel and Luke’s gospel the wording shows a statement made by God the Father specifically to Jesus. “Thou art my beloved son” (Mk 1:11; Lk 3:22)—Thou art—meaning ‘you are.’

Note the delight that God has with Jesus Christ. You’ll find it all the way through the pages of God’s word. John 3:35, for example, says “The Father loveth the son, and has given all things into his hand.” There is an affinity between the Father and the son. Notice that statement out of Heaven once again. For it has roots in the Old Testament. The first part where he says, “You are my beloved son” can be traced to the Psalm 2 serving as a description of the Messianic King. “This day have I begotten thee”, we have in the Psalm 2. The next phrase, “In whom I am well pleased,” has its antecedent in Isaiah 42—a prophecy where we have a description of the Servant of the Lord whose portrait culminates in the sufferings of Isaiah chapter 53. So it has its roots in the Old Testament.

Secondly it’s a guarantee of the person of Christ. Who is this Jesus? He is none other than Jehovah God. God couldn’t speak like this of anybody else apart from redemption. It is a guarantee of who Jesus is. It expresses the solidarity of the Father with the Son in all the purposes of the incarnation. The solidarity of the oneness of the Father and the Son in the whole redemptive program. Jesus Christ did not go out of the Father’s house on his own. It is possible for a son to leave his father’s house, take the car and do something alien to the thought of a father. But at the very outset of Christ’s public ministry on earth, the Father speaks, and He’s saying what’s happening on earth I’m back of it. What the savior is about to do, I am doing it. He is about to announce that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. That pleases me, the father says. He is about to say the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. That statement pleases me, the Father says. I am pleased with what my son is doing.

It will be said of him by the apostle that there is one mediator between God and man; the man Christ Jesus. That pleases me. He will go to a cross; he will become a substitute. That pleases me. He is going to offer his life as a guarantee of a new covenant—the guarantee of our acceptance with the father. That pleases me, God says. And you need never be overly concerned about the stability of your faith.

There may be a moment when anyone might ask himself the question, am I really even saved? When we question that, listen to the voice saying to Jesus, “You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” In that moment, we too can be calm and full of joy, because we have been identified with Jesus, even as Jesus was identified with the Father. That is a tremendous security. In Liverpool England about one hundred years ago there was a clergyman in the church of England known as bishop Ryle. He wrote these interesting words:

“There is a rich mine of comfort, in these words, for all Christ’s believing members. In themselves, and in their own doings, they see nothing to please God. They are daily sensible of weakness, shortcoming, and imperfection in all their ways. But let them recollect that the Father regards them as members of His beloved Son Jesus Christ. He sees no spot in them. (Song of Solomon. 4:7) He beholds them as ‘in Christ’, clothed in His righteousness, and invested with His merit. They are ‘accepted in the Beloved,’ and when the holy eye of God looks at them, He is ‘well pleased.’” (J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark, 1859).

There is something else worth noting that happened about three years after this incident of Christ’s baptism. We’ll also look at it later when Jesus went up to the mount of transfiguration with three of his disciples and Moses and Elijah stood by him. Once again scripture records the fact that the voice came out of heaven saying, “this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”—And he adds the phrase, “Hear ye him” (Lk 9:35).

In taking of a lamb into the Jewish home, the man could detect as any kind of exterior blemish or spot; but he couldn’t spot any malignancy inside. At the end of three days, some sore might have developed on the lamb in the house. But the Lord Jesus Christ, having been identified by the Father at the beginning here at the baptism is once again examined and identified at the end of not three days, but three years. Before he is taken out of the house of Israel to be put to death for our sins. In those three years, the Lord Jesus had walked with men, he didn’t live in fundamentalist circles isolated from the world. If Jesus were here today, we would most likely find him among publicans and sinners, in places where we haven’t been in the whole of our lives. Yet, it is the firm testimony of the Word of God, that Jesus commonly associated with the outcast of society. Our false respectability that we’ve gathered around the practice of Christianity is something totally alien to our position of being in Christ. He left Heaven to become a man and to live among men. We too, increasingly must be the Word become flesh, dwelling among people with great needs, and there ministering Jesus Christ. In the world, but not of the world. Not being judgmental, not saying, oh my dear you shouldn’t have done that. But moving among people in readiness and ease and demonstrating the true love of our Lord. That is what attracted people to Jesus. It was his manifest love. That is what pleased the Father. Because God’s name is Love, and his nature is love. The pouring out of love is what pleases the Father. If we take our faith and live apart from the world in ivory towers, and we live aloof from fallen humanity, we simply haven’t understood Christ’s identification with man. For too long we have failed to see the significance of Christ’s baptism as heaven become earth for us without becoming earthy. The extension of that truth is that we are to become one with the world, not one with its aims and its methods with the world system, but one with it in love, ready to touch its infirmities; ready to meet the worlds needs.

There is an old song that says do you know the world is dying for a little bit of love? Everywhere you hear them sighing for a little bit of love. For the love that rights the wrong, for the love that brings the song, they have waited oh so long, for a little bit of love. That love can’t be brought to the world. We must be willing to be baptized into the world as Jesus was baptized into the world, identified with it; to grow our lives rooted in Christ; living in an alien world—the word become flesh and dwelt among us. Heaven’s scarlet rose blooming in the midst of the weeds of our lives. That example, must set the tone for our lives.

There are multitudes of lonely people all around us today—people who just expand like a flower after the rain if they were really seeing the love and the forgiveness of Christ for them. That is really the bottom line when it comes to the baptism of Jesus. He was not baptized for the remission of sins—he had no sin. But he came to identify with humanity. God the Father said, “That is my boy, and I love him. He is meeting the needs of the world, to bring love to the lovelorn and calm to the frustrated and peace to the desperate. I believe his desire today, is that he might project himself through us, as we are identified with Christ we become his representative everywhere—in our neighborhoods, on our jobs, wherever we go. As our hearts begin to overflow with that love for Christ, he will open the way, over the fence, at the supermarket, on the bus. Wherever we can speak the word.

We have to go around with a sandwich board that has a big sign on it saying, “Brother are you prepared to die?” All we have to do is go around with love in our hearts, baptize, identify with Christ, and others will automatically take notice. We can be well assured that we are in Christ. And with us, God is also well pleased.