Why Was Jesus Baptized?
If you answer that question, does it mean that YOU should then be baptiszed? Well why not give this little post from Jared Wilson a read and find out. I find it amazing how many folks in church today are confusing both the Table of the Lord and Baptism. When we get saved, God does something to us! He changes us, transforms us and opens up for us a relationship with Him. That relationship involves not only love and joy but also a metamorphoses of the heart.
We no longer want to be like we were but are passionately seeking to be like Christ, but WHY? Why would we want that? The answer is...if you have been brought to life, rescued from hell, bathed in love and mercy and grace, and your eyes have been opened to the wonders of Jesus, how could you NOT want to be like Jesus?!
Jared Wilson goes on to say...
Jesus had no sin to confess and repent, and yet he submitted to John’s “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4). Why?
I think there are three general reasons:
1. To signal the new covenant beginning. The kingdom of God was “at hand,” and just as Joshua led the people of God across the Jordan to the Promised Land, the true and better Joshua leads his people at the Jordan River in baptism, signaling the fulfillment of the Promised Land shadow.
2. “To fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). Jesus was baptized because he was obedient to God’s commands, including the prescribed rites for entrance into the priesthood (Leviticus 8:6; Exodus 29:4). To be our great high priest after the order of Melchizedek, he needed the ritual washing. If he hadn’t submitted to baptism he would have had a sin to repent of in baptism! Instead, Jesus is baptized as part of his total life of obedience to the Father’s will. We need a perfect righteousness to be saved, and Jesus gives us his, which includes his baptism:
3. To be our substitute. When we are baptized we are making our profession of faith in Christ, making an appeal to God based on what baptism corresponds to (1 Peter 3:21). But we still come up out of the water as sinners. Our baptism is made perfect, however, because through faith, Christ’s baptism becomes our baptism (Romans 6:3-4; Galatians 3:27). It is part of his eternal obedience imputed to us.
We no longer want to be like we were but are passionately seeking to be like Christ, but WHY? Why would we want that? The answer is...if you have been brought to life, rescued from hell, bathed in love and mercy and grace, and your eyes have been opened to the wonders of Jesus, how could you NOT want to be like Jesus?!
Jared Wilson goes on to say...
Jesus had no sin to confess and repent, and yet he submitted to John’s “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4). Why?
I think there are three general reasons:
1. To signal the new covenant beginning. The kingdom of God was “at hand,” and just as Joshua led the people of God across the Jordan to the Promised Land, the true and better Joshua leads his people at the Jordan River in baptism, signaling the fulfillment of the Promised Land shadow.
2. “To fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). Jesus was baptized because he was obedient to God’s commands, including the prescribed rites for entrance into the priesthood (Leviticus 8:6; Exodus 29:4). To be our great high priest after the order of Melchizedek, he needed the ritual washing. If he hadn’t submitted to baptism he would have had a sin to repent of in baptism! Instead, Jesus is baptized as part of his total life of obedience to the Father’s will. We need a perfect righteousness to be saved, and Jesus gives us his, which includes his baptism:
3. To be our substitute. When we are baptized we are making our profession of faith in Christ, making an appeal to God based on what baptism corresponds to (1 Peter 3:21). But we still come up out of the water as sinners. Our baptism is made perfect, however, because through faith, Christ’s baptism becomes our baptism (Romans 6:3-4; Galatians 3:27). It is part of his eternal obedience imputed to us.
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