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Our Lord’s Baptism

 

Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.”                                                                                                            Matthew 3:13-17)

 

Our Lord Jesus spent the first thirty years of his life on this earth in obscurity. But the time had come for him to embark upon his public ministry and prophetic office. He did so by coming from Galilee to Jordan to be baptized by John the Baptist. As the Jewish priests of the Old Testament, when they entered the priestly office, consecrated themselves to God by being washed with water (Exodus 29:4), so our great High Priest began the great work which he came into the world to accomplish by consecrating himself to God in public baptism. Being baptized by John the Baptist, our Lord Jesus here sits before us an example of obedience to God, which he later commanded all his disciples to follow.

 

An Honored Ordinance

Do any imagine that baptism is an insignificant thing? Do any dare assert that this ordinance of Christ is a “non-essential”? The Son of God did not look upon it as such. The journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem took three days. Yet, our Savior took that long journey so that he might be baptized by John the Baptist. I take it from such an example that this ordinance of Divine worship is not to be lightly esteemed. If Christ our Lord, the Head of the Church, honored the ordinance of baptism by submitting to it, surely all who profess to follow him must do the same.

 

A Simple Picture

Baptism is a picture of redemption; but baptism is not redemption. Baptism is a picture of the remission of sins; but baptism is not the remission of sins. Baptism is a picture of salvation; but baptism is not salvation.

      We are redeemed by the blood of Christ. We are born again by the Spirit of God. We are saved by the grace of God. Baptism pictures and confesses these blessings of grace. But baptism has absolutely no redeeming, saving merit and efficacy!

 

Righteousness Fulfilled

Why did the Lord Jesus insist upon being baptized by John? He had no sins to confess. He had no transgressions of which to repent. He had no iniquities to be washed away. Yet, he told John that it was necessary for him to be baptized “to fulfil all righteousness.” But what did his baptism have to do with the fulfillment of all righteousness?

      We know that our blessed Savior fulfilled all the righteous requirements of God’s holy law for us as our Representative, freeing us from its curse and condemnation by his obedience unto death (Romans 5:18-21). And he fulfilled all the will of God as the God-man, our Mediator, by which we are forever sanctified (Hebrews 10:5-14).

      By his baptism, our Savior symbolically fulfilled all righteousness and established as a standing ordinance in his Church that by which believing men and women publicly confess the fulfillment of all righteousness by him. By his baptism, the Lord Jesus symbolically demonstrated how he would fulfil all righteousness as our sin-atoning Substitute. And by our baptism, we confess the same.

      “The baptism of Christ,” wrote C. H. Spurgeon, “was the picture, the type, the symbol of the work, which he afterwards accomplished. He was immersed in suffering; he died, and was buried in the tomb; he rose again from the grave; and all that is set forth in the outward symbol of his baptism in the River Jordan.”

 

Believer’s Baptism

Believer’s baptism symbolically fulfills “all righteousness.” It is an ordinance full of meaning. It is to be reverently observed by all who follow Christ. If our Lord himself submitted to it, we cannot follow him and refuse to submit to it. I quote Spurgeon again. — “Shall I refuse to follow my Lord? Shall I think that there is nothing in an ordinance of which he said, ‘Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness’?”

      When the Lord Jesus was made sin for us, he was slain under the wrath of God, and buried. When he had put away sin, he rose from the dead because he had accomplished our justification. When believers follow Christ into the watery grave, we publicly acknowledge that our only hope before God is that which he accomplished for us in his death and resurrection as our Substitute. Rising up out of the watery grave, we symbolically avow our allegiance to Christ, walking with him in the newness of life, in hope of the resurrection (Romans 6:4-6).

 

Immersion Only

And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.” — While I fully recognize that many oppose our insistence upon baptism as an ordinance for believers only, and upon the fact that baptism can only be performed by immersion, it would be treasonous of me not to declare the obvious from this portion of Holy Scripture. Baptism is immersion. Immersion is not “the Baptists’ mode of baptism.” Immersion is baptism. “Sprinkling” is sprinkling. And “pouring” is pouring. Baptism is immersion. Sprinkling is something you do with water. Pouring is something you do with water. Baptism is something done in water.

      “Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water.” — There is absolutely no reason for Matthew to make that statement except to show us that baptism must be performed by immersion. Without immersion, there is no baptism.

      Baptism is always represented in the Scriptures as a burial (Romans 6:3-6; Colossians 2:12; 1 Corinthians 15:1, 29). When you bury a corpse in the earth, you do not throw a few grains of sand in its face. You put it beneath the ground. And a man is not buried in baptism by sprinkling a few drops of water in his face. He must be immersed in water. Any alternation of the baptismal mode is a perversion of the ordinance and a denial of what it represents — The Gospel of redemption and righteousness by Christ alone.

 

 

 

Don Fortner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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