Three Facts About Christ’s Baptism
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· 8 viewsAn in-depth look at the baptism of Jesus Christ
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If you have your Bible and I hope that you do, please turn with me to the book of Mark. We will be in chapter 1 verses 9-11 and we are studying today about the baptism of Jesus Christ. The stained glass behind me depicts this scene that we are going to study.
Last week we touched on this act of baptism and what it represented in the first century and I would like to elaborate on that a bit more before we read the text— in the first century, when a Gentile was converting to Judaism, they would take part in a ceremonial bath. It was a washing or cleansing of their old culture, old habits, old beliefs, and sins. It was a detailed ceremony required by the religious leaders in order to show that the convert was forsaking their old ways and heritage to become fully Jewish.
Now, John was taking this religious ceremony and righteously redeeming it for the glory of God. In fact by John the Baptist was preaching to the Jews about the need for repentance and baptism he was in effect saying that the Jews were unclean, needing to forsake their culture, their habits, their unbiblical beliefs, their sins. He was saying they were on the same level as Gentiles and needed cleansing. That was completely offensive to a first century Jewish persons mind. They have the Law, they have the prophets, they have the very promises of God! That’s why John tears that belief system down and points at the rocks and tells those listening that God can raise up children of Abraham from those very stones and not to trust in the Law, or their position as the chosen people of God but to prepare themselves for the arrival of the Messiah.
And just as suddenly as John the Baptist appears in the Gospel, Jesus Christ appears suddenly as well and he comes to John for baptism. Remember what John said about the Messiah in verse 8, “I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
John’s baptism is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and yet here comes the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit to be baptized by John! Why? Well, that’s what we are going to talk about today as we study Three Facts about Christ’s Baptism. Please stand with me in honor of God’s Word as we read Mark 1:9-11. READ. PRAY.
Our passage begins with the phrase, “In those days”, we know that it was in the forty-sixth year of Herod’s temple being built that Jesus’ baptism takes place. We also know that the temple began it’s construction in 20 B.C., so this takes place in the year 27 A.D. Once again, we serve a real, historically verifiable Savior.
This is when John’s ministry begins and it’s also when Christ comes onto the scene shortly after John prepares the way of the Lord. Jesus came to John from Nazareth. Nazareth was a little town about 70 miles north of Jerusalem. Nazareth was located in Galilee and was densely populated by Gentiles. For those who don’t know, a Gentile is everyone who isn’t Jewish. A bit of history here for you, Galilee was conquered by Joshua when the Hebrews were taking the Promised Land and was a part of the northern kingdom of Israel back when the kingdom was divided.
In 722, Assyria attacked Israel and Israel was taken into captivity and many Gentiles moved in and remained there after the Babylonian Exile ended in 538 BC. This led to scorn and mistrust from the Jews for their Gentile neighbors and it led to hate and racism. John 7:41-42 says “Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?”
If only they had talked to Jesus. But they were also willfully ignorant of God’s Word too. The prophet Isaiah says (9:1-2) “But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.” Who is this light that came out of Galilee? It’s Jesus Christ!
I think this is a good reminder to us that God uses our heritage and history for His glory and purpose. You might have come from a really rough home, or from a great and godly home. Praise the Lord that now in Christ you have been adopted into the family of God and have eternal salvation by faith in Christ.
Praise God that we don’t have to prove ourselves like so many people demanded of Christ! You see, Christ is the proof for us and when we profess Christ, He takes us in and professes us before our Father in heaven.
Now Mark just shares the straight facts without any details that Christ was baptized by John in the Jordan. But let’s check out the parallel text in Matthew 3:13-15 “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.”
Why did Jesus have to be baptized? Was it because Jesus needed to be saved? No. Was it because there was some sort of conversion that needed to happen? No. Perhaps it was because at the baptism Jesus would become godlike? No. The reason that Jesus Christ was baptized was because He was identifying with us completely. (Christ was baptized to identify with us). At Christ’s baptism he associated Himself with the sinners and with the guilty- not for Him to be saved but so that we could be saved. He was baptized not for His guilt, but to identify with our own. Jesus wasn’t baptized to escape the judgment and wrath of God, but He was baptized to save us from it because Christ’s baptism points to the cross.
Remember that it’s not simply that Christ died on the cross that we are saved. Jesus had three and a half years of ministry. For 33 years Christ walked the earth! If Jesus only had to die He could have descended from heaven, been nailed to the cross, died, and rose again on the third day.
By doing that though, Jesus would have taken us back to our original state in the Garden. We wouldn’t be guilty anymore, but we also wouldn’t have the righteousness of Christ because our Redeemer not only died the death that we deserved but He lived the life we couldn’t live so that not only did Christ take our sins away on the cross, but He also imputes to us His righteousness when we place our faith and trust in Him.
You might be here and you feel all the weight and guilt of sin and shame. You have addictions that no one may know about, you may fake it here on Sundays, you might have hate and bitterness or deep resentment in your heart— but let me tell you that when you come to the Lord Jesus Christ He takes all of that and He makes it “quasi numquam accidit” as though it never happened. In fact, not only does God by faith in Jesus Christ remove our guilt and punishment but He gives us the righteousness of Christ so that we are now counted as righteousn. Although we may still have sin we wrestle against or perhaps fall into, God sees the righteousness of His Son in our lives and beckons us to come to Him, confess those sins and be restored into fellowship with Him.
Jesus was baptized by immersion and as he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open” We need to stop a minute that examine that because just as we identify with the death of Christ in our baptism as believers, Christ was buried and brought up pointing to His death, burial, and resurrection. And then we see this word, it’s going to come up a lot in book of Mark, it’s the word “immediately”. That word is “ethys” which means straightaway, or upright. It’s used 42 times in Mark, nearly three times more than the rest of the New Testament put together.
But it’s important to note this not because it’s just an attention grabber. Immediately is put here to point to the fact that John the Baptist’s ministry has been fulfilled. John’s ministry was to make the paths straight for the Lord and at the baptism of the Messiah it was straightaway Christ’s ministry began. And it begins with a prophet’s prayer being answered.
Isaiah 64:1 says “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence” We see that in the Exodus God didn’t come down until the people had consecrated themselves. Exodus 19:10-11 “the LORD said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.”
Mark writes that the heavens were torn open. I imagine that was a terrifying sight. Tear open is one word in the Greek and it’s schizo. It means split, divided, separated. Whatever John the Baptist saw must have been awe inspiring, but out of this tear came the Holy Spirit.
And it is the Spirit of God that descends on him like a dove. We read that as the form of a dove, but it doesn’t say that. It says like a dove in bodily form. And the Spirit of God, just as it was over the waters at creation, was over the waters of the Jordan and it descended and rested on Jesus Christ.
Second Fact about Christ’s Baptism: Christ is blessed and anointed with the Holy Spirit. None of us had the heavens opened up to us at our baptism, none of us saw the Holy Spirit descending on anyone, none of us heard the Father speaking from heaven.
None but Christ alone! Why? Jesus didn’t need to be baptized to repent of sins. He did it as we said, to fully identify with us and by Him going into the baptismal waters, Christ was confessing the sin of all who would place their faith and trust in Him. He entered the waters because it was the will of the Father and through baptism, Christ was setting Himself apart in faith just like you and I must do. The difference is that Jesus is true Israel and perfect and His repentance was perfect.
Now, we should ask why the Spirit descended like a dove and there’s two major interpretations: Firstly, a dove was often used by rabbi’s in this time to symbolize Israel. As I’ve said, Christ is True Israel, chosen by the Father and so this could be in reference to Christ’s unique representation that those who believe in Christ are grafted into True Israel.
Or secondly, and I’ve alluded to this as well, the Holy Spirit coming down like a dove could be in reference to the Creation account. Genesis 1:2 says that the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters but that word hover means to flutter or fly. This interpretation points to a new creation happening at the baptism of Jesus. The beginning of the New Covenant by Christ’s ministry and blood!
Either way you land on this, the baptism of Christ is in a lot of ways the public coronation of the King. And His ministry is validated by what John saw of the Holy Spirit but also through what was heard from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” The Third Fact About Christ’s Baptism is that Christ is beloved by the Father.
This is one of the great Trinitarian passages of the New Testament. The Holy Spirit and the Father are present to declare that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He didn’t become the Son of God, He is the Son of God! By the Holy Spirit’s descent, He is blessed and anointed to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom but the voice of God commissions Him to undertake this ministry.
But it is precisely because Christ is beloved by the Father that we are objects of God’s love now. Jesus Christ is “well pleasing” to the Father, and since He is well pleasing, He is eternally well pleasing and so in Christ, God has no displeasure in those who trust in Jesus. Jesus’ death was our death, and Jesus’ life was our life so we are now, by faith pleasing to the Father.
1 Peter 1:18-19 says "you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” In the Old Testament, people would go to priests to offer sacrifices for the forgiveness of their sins. How many millions of lambs, rams, goats, oxen, bulls, and doves were sacrificed during the history of Israel?
Yet none of them were well-pleasing to the Father. None of them moved His people into a permanent state of fellowship with the Lord. None of them actually removed sin, shame, and guilt. It was only in Christ that we find these things to be true and because Jesus died in your place and mine we are now beloved, accepted, and adopted into the family of God.
The baptism of Christ points to the baptism of the cross. Jesus referred to the cross using those words in Luke 12:50 “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” The baptism of the cross also has a tearing. The veil in the temple was also schizo’d. It was torn from top to bottom. And there was also the declaration that Jesus Christ was the Son of God by the centurion. And just as Christ on the cross died, baptism is the symbol of that death.
So when we trust in Christ we join Jesus in His death, burial, and resurrection symbolically but we know that baptism doesn’t save us. Perhaps some of you may have been baptized but you’ve never received the Holy Spirit because you’ve never been converted to Christ.
You see, that’s the baptism that we need to be justified and it happens suddenly. It happens without warning. I know many of my friends and people I know who when they were saved weren’t looking to be saved.
In the service I was saved in I was exhausted and fell asleep much like Eutychus! But when I woke with a start I heard the Law and the preaching I needed and I heard the Gospel. And it was at that my moment that the Holy Spirit unexpectedly stirred up my heart and I was born again to a living hope and I received the Holy Spirit by grace through faith.
Christ died to share the gift of salvation with undeserving sinners like me. If that’s you then Amen! Praise the Lord! If you’ve never trusted in Christ, then what are you waiting for? Today is the day of salvation! Go to the Lord and ask Him to save you. Ask Him to work in your heart. Seek Him while He may be found and don’t wait. Do it now!
Head: I want you to know that Christ associates Himself with sinners at His baptism so that He could be the perfect substitute on the cross. In the death of Christ we know that Jesus took the full cup of God’s wrath and drank it to the dregs. Now, for those who are in Christ, no wrath remains any longer. In fact, the pleasure that the Father has in Christ is the same pleasure that God has in you.
Heart: I want you to believe that Christ perfectly obeyed all that the Father willed so that you could have His righteousness. None of us can or will be perfect but we are being made perfect by sanctification yet God sees us perfectly because of the righteousness of His Son. Praise the Lord!
Hand: I want you to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation! If you are a believer then continue trust in Christ for your salvation. You never outgrow your need for Christ. But if you’ve never trusted in Christ then do it today and tell someone about what God is doing in your heart.
