09 Why Did Jesus Get Baptized? (Matthew 3:13-17)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today we're gonna study Matthew chapter 3, verses 13 through 17. This is the ninth talk in our series on the Gospel of Matthew. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below the podcast, and you can also find those notes by going to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 9. Thanks so much for joining me today. We are continuing our series on the Gospel of Matthew. We're finishing chapter three today. And today, Matthew finally introduces us to Jesus. Up to now we've been told a lot about him. We've been told about his miraculous birth and how God protected him as an infant and a child. We've seen John the Baptist announce his coming, but in Matthew's telling this is the first time that we see the man himself. I want to read Matthew chapter three verses thirteen through seventeen. 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 open 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. So we first meet Jesus as he travels from Galilee to the Jordan for the purpose of being baptized by John. And while we know that Jesus comes to John for the purpose of being baptized, notice what he does not do is find John before a huge crowd in a big auditorium and say here I am with a drum roll and a big entourage. Instead, he comes quietly to submit himself to John's baptism. Matthew is the only one of the gospel writers that tells us that John objects to performing the baptism at first, and his objection is really understandable. He's been describing the Messiah as coming in judgment, as being greater than he is, and that he, John, is not fit to remove his sandal. The fate of everyone in the world, including John the Baptist, is in the Messiah's hands, and now this man is standing before him in the flesh asking to be baptized. It just seems natural that John would question why Jesus is coming to him for baptism. When he says I have need to be baptized by you, presumably he's referring to his own need for grace and repentance and salvation. He needs Jesus to forgive and cleanse him and give him the Spirit. Essentially he's saying you don't need me, I'm the one who needs you. So that raises the question, why does Jesus ask to be baptized? For everyone else, baptism represented confessing their sins and turning back to God. Well Jesus didn't need to do that. In the last podcast, we talked about how baptism is a sign that you have aligned yourself with the teaching of the one in whose name you are baptized and you have committed yourself to following his message. And let me just review that briefly. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament use water as a symbol of cleansing. Washing with water symbolizes the washing away of guilt and leaving behind my old way of living and turning to a new way of living. And baptism is something you only do once. It's not something you do repeatedly to become ritually clean like the Old Testament laws. Baptism is a ritual that symbolizes your commitment to following the teaching of the one in whose name you're being baptized. It was appropriate for Jesus to be baptized by John because he was accepting John the Baptist as a prophet of God. John announced a call to pursue the righteousness of God, to pursue his kingdom and repent of your sins, and that is a call that Jesus will echo and teach as well. John announced that God has sent his Messiah into the world, and Jesus agrees that God has sent his Messiah into the world. In fact, he Jesus is that Messiah. Accepting John's baptism demonstrates that Jesus accepts John's authority as a prophet and accepts the truth of his message. The apostle John gives us a little bit more detail in his gospel. This event takes place after Jesus has been baptized. John the Baptist has been explaining to the priests and the Levites that he is not the Christ, rather he is the voice crying in the wilderness, and that he, John, is not fit to untie the strap of the Messiah's sandal, and we read this. This is John chapter one verses twenty nine through thirty four. The next day he, that's John the Baptist, saw Jesus coming to him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he on behalf of whom I said, After me comes a man who has a higher rank than I, for he existed before me. I did not recognize him, but so that he might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water. John testified, saying, I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and he remained upon him. I did not recognize him, but he who sent me to baptize in water said to me, He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, this is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God. So here we learn that God told John the Baptist, This is how you will know and recognize the Messiah. When you baptize the Messiah, the Spirit will descend and remain on him. And here John says, God told me this sign would happen when I baptize the Messiah, and this sign happened when I baptized Jesus. I myself have seen this. So John the Baptist was given specific testimony as to how he would know for sure who the Messiah is, and he's saying here, as recorded in John, look, I saw it happen with Jesus. When John says in 131, I did not recognize him, I think he's saying, I didn't know for sure until this sign was given that he was the Messiah. It's probable, it seems very likely to me that John thought Jesus was the Messiah. John probably had an educated guess that Jesus was the Messiah, but as a prophet of God, he is waiting for God to tell him for sure before he speaks it forth. And God has told him, this is how you'll know for sure, and then it happened. We don't see John telling others who the Messiah is before he baptizes Jesus. But notice how this account started. This is after the baptism, and John says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So after the baptism, when John has seen the sign God told him would happen, John is very happy to announce this man Jesus, he's the one. Was he surprised that the Messiah turned out to be his cousin Jesus? I don't think so. We have indications that John knew that Jesus was something special very early. When Mary was pregnant with Jesus and her cousin Elizabeth was pregnant with John the Baptist, Luke records this event, this is Luke chapter one verses thirty nine through forty five. In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Well that baby would be John the Baptist. I suspect that John knew early that he would be a prophet, and he probably suspected that his cousin Jesus was the Messiah, he would have heard the family stories of his miraculous birth and so forth. But as a prophet of God, he would not claim that Jesus was the Messiah on his own authority. He waited for God to confirm it with the sign that God said he would confirm it with. After that time, after that confirmation, John as a prophet of God can testify, yes, this man Jesus is the Messiah. I think that's probably the sense in which John didn't know or didn't recognize Jesus as the Messiah before. Personally, he probably believed Jesus was the Messiah all along, but he was waiting for God to confirm it. And after the baptism, he can testify as a prophet because he has a direct revelation from God that confirmed the Messiah's identity. And by submitting to John's baptism, the sign is fulfilled and Jesus is confirmed as the Messiah. This is a striking act of humility for Jesus. In essence, the king of the universe is submitting to a prophet of God. It's his first official act in his public ministry. It's you could think of it as his inauguration or his coronation of sorts. And I think it's significant that the first time we see him in person, he's humbling himself. He doesn't come and throw his weight around. He doesn't come and demand that everyone present worship him and give him tithes and praise. He doesn't come and claim political power and ruling authority or judicial authority. He doesn't come demanding that everyone present bow down before him. He comes to John to be baptized. He probably stood in line waiting his turn. He humbles himself to the purposes of God, and this is what the Messiah is all about. He came to serve and fulfill the purposes of God. He demonstrates his own submission to the truth and to his calling and to God's purposes by submitting to the baptism of John. It's right that Jesus endorses John's message of repentance. It's right that Jesus demonstrate humility before the truth of God's message. And I also think there's a sense in which the Messiah stands for his people. I'm not sure what it looked like for the heavens to be opened or the way the Spirit descended like a dove. I suspect it probably was not an actual dove, but that's the closest visual representation that they could give. It would be nice if Matthew had given us a bit more detail, but he doesn't. In any case, we have this striking visual event accompanied by an audible voice from heaven, all of which confirms the identity of Jesus as the Messiah. It's the sign John the Baptist was told to look for, and its significance is clear evidence that this man, Jesus, is the Messiah. Does the descending of the Holy Spirit symbolize anything else? Is this a kind of special anointing of the Spirit? Well, Luke follows this story with this verse, this is Luke 4 1. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness. While it does seem logical to me that the Messiah would receive a special or unique anointing of the Spirit, I don't think I would understand this to mean that Jesus had some kind of superpowers. It is clear from the Gospels that Jesus prayed and acted under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but I don't think that means he had some kind of superpower. Well, unless you think of holiness as a superpower. His mind, his understanding, and his thinking were not clouded by sin, they weren't marred by sin, they weren't flawed by selfishness, his heart and his mind and his will were fully and completely aligned with the purposes of God. But that's not really a superpower. It's more that he is a man who is fully trusting God. Well, how would the Gospels indicate that? I think they would easily describe it as he was full of the Holy Spirit. Now Jesus' baptism is the first place that Jesus is referred to as God's Son in Matthew's Gospel, though it is implied in the Hosea quote that we looked at earlier. But here at his baptism, the voice of God calls him my beloved son. I want to spend most of our time talking about what it means to be the Son of God. We tend to think that Son of God means that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity. But this is a term that has a rich Old Testament history. And we want to ask the question, what would a Jew present at the baptism think if he heard the voice say, This is the Son of God? And I want to argue that to the Jews of Matthew's day, the term son of God referred to a Davidic king. Let me tell you how I get there. David is king in Israel, and he wants to build a temple, a house for God. And through Nathan the Prophet, God tells David that David is not going to be the one who will build the house for God, but rather God will build a house for David. And by house, God doesn't mean a temple, God means a dynasty, the line of David, the house of David in the sense of his royal line. Saul was the first king of Israel, and God removed him as king over Israel. And not only that, God removed his children from kingship. There is no dynasty of Saul. But God tells David, that's not going to happen to you. God tells David that someone from his line will reign on his throne forever. Let me read Second Samuel chapter seven. This is where we find that what we call the Davidic covenant. I'm going to read verses twelve through sixteen, and this is God speaking to David when he is king. When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men. But my loving kindness shall not depart from him as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever. Your throne shall be established forever. So here God promises David that his throne will last forever. He tells David that he will correct David's descendant who will sit on the throne next, but not remove his loving kindness. And in context he's referring to Solomon, who does rule after David, and he does build the temple. And even though Solomon and all the sons who come after him mess up, God disciplines them, but he does not take the kingship from them. And Solomon did mess up, as many of the kings of Israel and Judah did, and God did discipline them, but he never takes the kingship away from David's line. Now notice in the process of making this promise he says in seven fourteen, I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me. Now what does that mean? We see the Davidic king described as having a father and son relationship with God. And in that culture, the oldest son ruled with the same authority as the father. The oldest son could speak for the father, he could do business in his father's name, he could represent his father in the town, in business, and in the family. The king, as the son of God, is the one whose rule is supposed to represent the father, as a first son is supposed to represent his earthly father. It does not mean that the king of Israel is divine. It means that he represents the rule of his heavenly father. Now we see this language picked up in Psalm eighty nine. Psalm eighty nine reflects on what happens after the Babylonian captivity. The Babylonians conquered the kingdom of Judah, leveled Jerusalem, and carted the Jews off into captivity in Babylon, and they seemingly destroyed the throne of David. And the Psalm is reflecting on that and asking, how long will it be until God fulfills his promises? Psalm eighty nine I'm going to start with verses one through four. I will sing of the loving kindness of the Lord forever. To all generations I will make known your faithfulness with my mouth, for I have said, Loving kindness will be built up forever in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness. I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn to David my servant, I will establish your seed forever, and build up your throne to all generations. And then skipping down to verse twenty, I have found David my servant with my holy oil I have anointed him. And that word anointed is the Hebrew word for Messiah. Messiah simply means the anointed one. And God is talking about David and David's line. Back to the Psalm, I have found David my servant with my holy oil I have anointed him, with whom my hand will be established, my arm also will strengthen him. The enemy will not deceive him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him, but I shall crush his adversaries before him and strike those who hate him. My faithfulness and my loving kindness will be with him, and in my name his horn will be exalted. I shall also set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers. He will cry to me, You are my father, my God and the rock of my salvation. I also shall make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. Basically the Psalmist restates the covenant that God made with David, and once again we have this picture of David as king, saying to God, You are my father, and God saying to David, As king, you are my firstborn. And then in poetic parallelism he rephrases it the highest of all the kings of the earth. So what does it mean to be the Son of God? It means to be the Davidic King, and what does it mean for the king to be the firstborn? It means he is the highest of the kings of the earth. We see this again in Psalm eighty two. This is Psalm eighty two verses one through four. God takes his stand in his own congregation, he judges in the midst of the rulers. How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Vindicate the weak and the fatherless, do justice to the afflicted and destitute. Rescue the weak and needy, deliver them out of the hand of the wicked. Here the Psalmist is talking to the kings who have inherited David's throne, and they are ruling over Israel, but they're ruling unjustly. And the Psalmist is asking, How long will you judge unjustly? How long will you continue to favor the wicked? Turn around, vindicate the weak and the fatherless. So he's asking, How long will they continue in this unjust rule showing partiality to the wicked? And then he says going on in verses five through eight They do not know, nor do they understand. They walk about in darkness, all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, You are gods, and all All of you are sons of the most high. Nevertheless, you will die like men and fall like any one of the princes. Arise, O God, judge the earth, for it is you who possess all the nations. Now remember this psalm is addressed to the kings of Israel and Judah, and it said and it says, You are sons of the most high. And I think because of the parallelism, that is also what he means when he says you are gods. I think you are gods is a phrase that means you are the sons of God. It's just a shortened version of it. Because as the Davidic king, you have this father-son relationship with God, you act as his firstborn, ruling with his authority. Now we could look at some other verses, but my point is from the Old Testament, I think we can build a case that the Jews understood the phrase son of God to refer to the Davidic King. Now what happens when we get to the New Testament? As I said, we today tend to think of the phrase son of God as a phrase that came about to explain the Trinity. There's God the Son, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit. But when we see this phrase in the Gospels, we see Jews using it. And these Jews had no concept of the Trinity whatsoever, and yet they address Jesus as the Son of God. Let me give you some examples. When Jesus calls Nathanael to be his disciple, Nathaniel says, this is John 149, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel. Now notice Nathaniel puts Son of God and King of Israel in opposition. He says, You are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel. When Jesus asks Peter, Who do you say that I am? Peter replies, this is Matthew 16, 16, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Now Christ is the Greek word for Messiah or anointed one, and Peter puts that in parallel with the Son of the Living God. After her brother Lazarus dies, but before Jesus raises him, Martha says to Jesus, this is John 11, 27, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. Again, we see Christ and Son of God together. At the trial of Jesus, the high priest demands that Jesus tell him whether he is the Christ. And we read this. This is Matthew 26, 63. But Jesus kept silent, and the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God. Again, those two terms are put together and seem to be synonyms. When Jesus is on the cross, they mock him and say, If you're the Son of God, save yourself. This is Matthew 27, forty. You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. Now every one of these people speaking that I've quoted was a Jew, a devout Jew, and are we to understand that all these people are talking about the Trinity? Where would someone like Peter or Martha or Nathaniel or the high priest have learned of the concept of the Trinity? It's really not very likely that that idea was in their theological vocabulary. Instead, we see them combining Christ, Messiah, Son of God, King. They combine Christ with the King of Israel. Now it is possible that they could mean you are both the Messiah, God's anointed one, and you are the second person of the Trinity, but it seems much more likely that they're putting those phrases together as synonyms and saying one thing, you are the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed king of Israel, and as the King of Israel, you are the Son of God, especially given our Old Testament understanding of that phrase. So I would argue that it seems very likely that an Israelite at the time would understand the phrase the Son of God to mean the Davidic King of Israel. Jesus' disciples did not start out understanding that Jesus was God, and that would be a really hard concept for a devout Jew to come to terms with. It's only later as they come to understand more of what Jesus came to do, his mission, his role, that they begin to understand the nature of his divinity. Now, am I arguing that because the term Son of God is not specifically a divine title? Am I arguing that Jesus is not divine? No, I am not arguing that at all. I am arguing that is not what this title means. Jesus did not get called the Son of God because he was divine. He got called the Son of God because he was the anointed one, the Messiah, the Davidic king who has been anointed by God to rule on David's throne forever over Israel and over all of creation. In the kingdom of God, Jesus will be ruling as King of kings and Lord of Lords, and that's why he's called the Son of God. Was David a son of God? Yes, in one sense he was. Was Solomon a son of God? Yes. Were the other Davidic kings sons of God? Yes. But not the same way Jesus is. They don't get the capital S, Son of God, because there is something unique about this Son of God. How could David have a throne that lasts forever? Because he has a descendant who will live forever and rule on that throne forever. Ultimately, Jesus is the fulfillment of this promise that God made to David that his throne would last forever. The Old Testament prophets make this very clear. There is one king coming who will rule on David's throne forever, and that coming king is the Messiah. We can read through the account of Jesus' baptism without even noticing this phrase. We think Jesus, divine, son of God, check. Yeah, I've heard that phrase applied to Jesus my whole life. But when I stopped to ask, what did the voice from heaven intend to communicate? What would that phrase have meant to a Jew in Matthew's day who was present at the baptism and saw this happen and heard this voice say, This is my son? Well, all the evidence we have points to the Messiah. They would have understood that voice and that term to mean this is the Messiah, the Davidic King, the one who will fulfill God's promises. As we've seen, several Old Testament passages describe David and the kings that descended from him as sons of God. There is a metaphorical father-son relationship between God and the King of Israel. The Messiah is the Davidic King who will rule over the earth forever, and he inherits the title Son of God. The people at Jesus' time understood this phrase to refer to the Messiah. At this point they knew nothing of the second person of the Trinity, and for them the Son of God meant the Davidic King, the Messiah. Now just as the Messiah is different from all the other kings, because he is the eternal king who reigns in perfect righteousness, so the Messiah is also uniquely the Son of God in a more profound way than the other kings. And we see this language, the only begotten or the one and only son. He bears that title in a more profound way than all the other kings of Israel. Anyone present at the baptism who heard this voice would think this is the Messiah. They would not think, oh, that's strange. I didn't know God had a son. They wouldn't think, oh yeah, I get it, that's the second person of the Trinity. I think they would think, wow, the voice of God is declaring that this man Jesus is the Messiah, the King of Israel, the Son of God. To close, then let me summarize what we've learned from chapter three. God Himself is acting to save his people, and he is saving them through the person of the Messiah. This is the great hope of Israel and of the world. The ministry of John the Baptist is an incredibly big deal. John is the herald announcing that the promised time of salvation has begun. The coming of the Messiah is the most important event in the history of the world for everyone, believer or not, and that makes John an incredibly important person. But John the Baptist is not saying the king is coming, be sure to mark that date on your calendar, clear your schedule. This is not a save the date kind of announcement. John the Baptist is saying the Messiah is coming and he's going to judge the world. Yes, he is bringing salvation and spiritual restoration, but he is also bringing judgment. John not only announces that the king is at hand, he calls on his listeners to make a decision. They have to decide how they're going to respond to this coming king. And John's advice is repent. The Messiah holds your destiny in his hands, so repent, confess your sins, and seek his mercy. And this is what his ministry of baptism is all about. John calls them to participate in this symbolic ceremony that says we recognize that we need to be cleansed. We acknowledge that we are sinful and worthy of judgment. We know we need to repent. We know we need God to forgive us, and we believe your teaching that the Messiah is coming and he is calling us into his kingdom, and that's why we're repenting and getting baptized. John warns the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, that being religious and being born a descendant of Abraham is not enough. And this is going to be a very big theme in Matthew's gospel and in the New Testament. A genuine repentance is required of everyone. In the first part of the chapter, John does not say who the Messiah is, only that he is here and everyone needs to decide how they're going to respond to him. Then one day, the Messiah, Jesus is standing in front of John. We, Matthew's readers, meet Jesus for the first time. The Messiah has come, but instead of the Messiah baptizing John the Baptist, he asked John to baptize him. He's not coming in strength and power with an entourage saying, Yes, John, I am he, thanks for your service. Now step aside and make way. He's not declaring judgment and separating the wheat from the chaff. Instead, he's humbly asking John to baptize him. By doing that, Jesus is endorsing John's ministry. He is saying John is a true prophet of God, his message is true, and I accept it and I submit myself to it. But even more, Jesus is demonstrating how he thinks about his own authority. Let's face it, if any man on the face of the earth deserved honor and glory, it's Jesus. If anyone deserves to have every single person bend their knee and bow their heads and say your majesty, when he walks in the room, it's Jesus. Jesus has the authority of eternal life and death in his hands, but he has come to fulfill the will of God. He speaks with the authority of the Most High God, and he acts with the power of the Lord God Almighty. In a real sense, his authority is absolute, and yet he is quite aware that all his power and all his authority come from the Father. He did not come to throw his weight around and demand praise and adulation. He has come to serve and to carry out the will of God. Jesus sees himself as answerable to the will of God, and so he accepts and embraces the truth of John's message. It doesn't matter that in one sense Jesus is John's boss. What matters is John is a prophet sent from God with a truth to proclaim, and Jesus humbly acknowledges this by asking his own servant to baptize him. By submitting himself to John's baptism, Jesus shows that he is a king to be trusted. He is not about power, he is not about seeking his own glory and honor, he is about serving God and carrying out God's will. And that is a very humble and lowly thing for Jesus to do, but it fits with all that we have learned about him so far from Matthew. Jesus was born as an unknown. He was in danger of being condemned as an illegitimate child until Joseph claimed him as his own. The leader of the Jews tried to kill him and he had to flee to Egypt. Ultimately he ends up living in the backwater as a nobody from Nazareth. Now we see Jesus, the king and judge of the world, submitting himself in the wilderness to the baptism of a prophet who wears a camel hair coat. This is not how you expect a king to act. But the outcome of his humility is that God, the author and the creator of the universe, pours out a lavish display demonstrating that Jesus is his chosen king and Messiah. The heavens open, the Spirit descends, and the voice of God declares Jesus to be the Son of God, the Messiah. This is a very typical pattern in the Bible. It is the one who humbles himself before God who will be raised up. Now we don't know how many people saw this or heard this at Jesus' baptism. We know at least Jesus and John saw and heard. Whether others are present or not, we don't know for sure. We learn that some of the disciples of John become disciples of Jesus after this baptism, so that suggests to me that others must have seen and heard too, but the gospel writers just don't tell us how public this event was. But we do know this had to be a very powerful and encouraging experience for Jesus as he begins his ministry. And we know that John the Baptist saw and understood the significance of the display, that yes, this man Jesus is truly the Messiah. And now we readers of Matthew's gospel understand as well. At the very beginning of his ministry, at his baptism by John, God testifies that this man Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, his beloved son. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figure it out. Your podcast speed may be limited to the last 20 or so episodes, but you can hear all 500 or more at wednesdayintheword.com. I encourage you to stop by my website. There are no ads, only podcasts and Bible study resources. It's all free, and it's designed to help you improve your study skills. I don't take advertising, I don't take donations. If you want to thank me, please join the mailing list, subscribe to the podcast, and tell a friend what you've learned and where you find it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coach. You can find all of his music on artfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the world.