The Baptism of Jesus
Introduction
Why was Jesus baptized? Jesus himself gives the answer in Matthew 3:13-15. “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ 15 But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’”
To Fulfill all Righteousness
Jesus was baptized to “fulfill all righteousness.” What is this referring to? Righteousness, according to Deuteronomy 6:25, is obedience to the law, “And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.”
Christ’s life is marked by obedience to the commandments of the Lord. In Luke 2:21, Jesus was circumcised in obedience to Leviticus 12:3. In Luke 2:22-23, Jesus was presented in the temple to fulfill the Mosaic law’s requirements for consecration and redemption of the firstborn (Ex. 13:2, 13-15; Lev. 12:2-8; Num. 3:44-47; 18:15f). In Luke 2:42 Jesus went to Jerusalem to the Passover when he was twelve years old in obedience to Exodus 34:23. In John 7:10, Mark 14:12, and Luke 22:8, Jesus observed the Jewish feasts commanded in the law of Moses (Lev. 23; Dt. 16:1-17). And, Jesus observed the Old Testament law at his baptism.
Christ’s baptism is the ceremonial act of his ordination into priesthood, where he is set apart as a priest. There were three requirements to become a priest, as summarized by Ben Rose.* First, you must be 30 years old (Num. 4:3, 47). This is why Luke 3:23 says that at his baptism Jesus was thirty years old. Second, you must be called of God, as was Aaron, the first high priest (Ex. 28:1). This is why Hebrews 5:4-10 says that Christ was called to be a priest. Third, you must be sprinkled with water (Num. 8:6-7) by a priest. This is why Jesus insists that John the Baptizer baptize Jesus, because John was a priest.
Did you ever wonder why Luke 1 spends so much time describing John the Baptizer’s father? It says “there was a priest named Zechariah” (Lk. 1:5). And John’s mother was “of the daughters of Aaron.” According to the Mosaic law, the son of a priest becomes a priest (Ex. 28:1; 29:9; Num. 3:10; 18:7; 25:13), and John was priestly on both sides.
Did you ever wonder why Luke 1 says twice that John is six months older than Jesus (Lk. 1:26, 36)? It’s to emphasize that John would reach the Levitical age of thirty, six months prior to Jesus (Num. 4:3, 47), meaning, John had been a priest for six months before the baptism of Jesus. Jerusalem sends priests and Levites to ask by what authority John baptized (Jn. 1:19, 25) because washing and purifications were priestly business.
So, John the priest is baptizing Jesus into the priesthood. Numbers 8:5-7 describes the baptizmos, “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 6 ‘Take the Levites from among the people of Israel and cleanse them. 7 Thus you shall do to them to cleanse them: sprinkle the water of purification upon them, and let them go with a razor over all their body, and wash their clothes and cleanse themselves.’”
The Torah refers to several ceremonial washings, all of which may be regarded as baptisms, according to Hebrews 9:10. Most of these baptisms could be self-administered, such as bodily discharges (Lev. 15:5-27; Dt. 23:11), touching a carcass (Lev. 11:25-40), soldiers after battle (Num. 31:24), and more. But three of these baptisms were performed by another: washing from leprosy (Lev. 14:1-7), washing from contact with a corpse (Num. 19:1-22), and priestly consecration (Ex. 29:4-9; Lev. 8:6-7).
Israel had turned leprous. They were like a dead corpse. Their priesthood was corrupted. At Jesus’ baptism, he is publicly confirmed as a priest, as described in Numbers 8:5-7, as it had been done for thousands of years. At Jesus’ baptism, he is sprinkled with water out of obedience to Numbers 8:5-7.
Jesus understood his baptism as the moment he was anointed as a priest. When Jesus cleansed the temple (Mt. 21:12; Mk. 11:15), he was exercising his priestly authority. When the Jews ask by what authority he cleanses the temple, he cited that John baptized him. Since John’s baptism was from heaven, Jesus had truly been ordained as a priest and had authority to cleanse the temple.
Jesus’ baptism publicly declared him a Melchizedekal priest (Heb. 5:5f), rather than a Levitical priest (Gen. 14:18–20; Ps. 110:4; Heb. 5:5–6; 7:11–17). Jesus entered the greater priesthood (Heb. 7:22; 8:6), becoming the ultimate high priest of his people (Heb. 2:17; 4:14; 7:26-28), bearing their sin (Isa. 53:12; Heb. 9:28; 1 Pet. 2:24) as the anointed Christ (Isa. 61:1; Luke 4:18; Acts 10:38), the priestly representative of the people (Ex. 28:29, 38; Heb. 5:1). In his baptism by John, he became identified with them in their sin (Matt. 3:6, 13; Isa. 53:12; 2 Cor. 5:21), exile (Hos. 11:1; Matt. 2:15; Mark 1:12-13), and death (Mark 10:38; Luke 12:50; Rom. 6:3-4; Num. 35:25, 28). Jesus “went up from the water” (Mt. 3:16), a theologically loaded phrase that means Jesus received the inheritance of Israel for all those united to him by faith.
Why was Heaven Opened?
Matthew 3:16-17 says, “And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’”
Why was heaven opened? First, so the Spirit could rest upon Jesus. In the Old Testament, the heavens are opened so the Spirit can be poured on the earth (Is. 32:15; 41:17-19; 44:3-4; Ez. 36:24-30). Just like in Genesis 1:2 where the Spirit hovers like a bird above the waters of earth, at Jesus’ baptism the Spirit comes upon Jesus like pouring water. Matthew 3:16 says the Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove of peace (Lev. 5:7). As the dove returned to the ark with evidence of a new world (Gen. 8:15-19; 9:1-4), so the dove rests on Jesus as evidence of a new world. Now, the Spirit and the dove signify not the creation of the world, but the re-creation of a new world; not the generation of a world, but the regeneration of a world (Mt. 19:28). In this new world there is a new ark, Lord Jesus, who saves his people, “not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through … resurrection” (1 Pet. 3:21).
The second reason the heavens opened was so the voice of the Father could say of Jesus, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17). At creation, the Holy Spirit, purifying water, and Heavenly Father appear together and formed a world out of the void (Gen. 1:2). As Jesus baptism, they appear together and created a world—a priestly people—from the void of Israel’s rebellion.
“You are my Son” comes from Psalm 2, and identifies Jesus as the fulfillment of the promised Davidic king who will rule over the earth. In Genesis 22:2, God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, “your beloved son.” So, Jesus is not only the new David, he is a new Isaac, the promised seed (Gal. 3:15-18), born of the Spirit, offered as the sacrifice, only this time the knife will finish the job. The Heavenly Father will do what Abraham did not have to do, sacrifice his only Son (Jn. 3:16). “In whom I delight,” comes from Isaiah 42:1, meaning that Jesus is the one chosen to embody God’s covenant and take it to all the world, opening eyes, releasing prisoners, smashing idols, and judging unrighteous Israel (Is. 42:1-7).
Isaiah prayed, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence” (Is. 64:1). The baptism of Jesus is the answer to Isaiah’s prayer. Jesus’ baptism is in the background of Luke 4:16-19, where he reads from the prophet Isaiah and says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus is interpreting the Jordan experience.
Conclusion
Jesus was baptized into the priesthood. Christians are baptized into Christ (Rom. 6:1-4), which means the priestly fulfillment of Jesus’ ministry is shared with his people who become a royal priesthood (1 Pt. 2:9). God’s people form a new priestly nation, with a unique calling to be holy as Christ is holy (1 Pet. 1:13-21), to live the life that Christ lived (Gal. 2:20), because the water and the Spirit sprinkle the priestly character of Christ on the soul (Jn. 3:5-8).
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.
* Ben L. Rose, “Baptism by Sprinkling” (Southern Presbyterian Journal: Weaverville, 1949), 10-11.
See Also
Leithart, Peter J. The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2003.
Why was Jesus baptized? Jesus himself gives the answer in Matthew 3:13-15. “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ 15 But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’”
To Fulfill all Righteousness
Jesus was baptized to “fulfill all righteousness.” What is this referring to? Righteousness, according to Deuteronomy 6:25, is obedience to the law, “And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.”
Christ’s life is marked by obedience to the commandments of the Lord. In Luke 2:21, Jesus was circumcised in obedience to Leviticus 12:3. In Luke 2:22-23, Jesus was presented in the temple to fulfill the Mosaic law’s requirements for consecration and redemption of the firstborn (Ex. 13:2, 13-15; Lev. 12:2-8; Num. 3:44-47; 18:15f). In Luke 2:42 Jesus went to Jerusalem to the Passover when he was twelve years old in obedience to Exodus 34:23. In John 7:10, Mark 14:12, and Luke 22:8, Jesus observed the Jewish feasts commanded in the law of Moses (Lev. 23; Dt. 16:1-17). And, Jesus observed the Old Testament law at his baptism.
Christ’s baptism is the ceremonial act of his ordination into priesthood, where he is set apart as a priest. There were three requirements to become a priest, as summarized by Ben Rose.* First, you must be 30 years old (Num. 4:3, 47). This is why Luke 3:23 says that at his baptism Jesus was thirty years old. Second, you must be called of God, as was Aaron, the first high priest (Ex. 28:1). This is why Hebrews 5:4-10 says that Christ was called to be a priest. Third, you must be sprinkled with water (Num. 8:6-7) by a priest. This is why Jesus insists that John the Baptizer baptize Jesus, because John was a priest.
Did you ever wonder why Luke 1 spends so much time describing John the Baptizer’s father? It says “there was a priest named Zechariah” (Lk. 1:5). And John’s mother was “of the daughters of Aaron.” According to the Mosaic law, the son of a priest becomes a priest (Ex. 28:1; 29:9; Num. 3:10; 18:7; 25:13), and John was priestly on both sides.
Did you ever wonder why Luke 1 says twice that John is six months older than Jesus (Lk. 1:26, 36)? It’s to emphasize that John would reach the Levitical age of thirty, six months prior to Jesus (Num. 4:3, 47), meaning, John had been a priest for six months before the baptism of Jesus. Jerusalem sends priests and Levites to ask by what authority John baptized (Jn. 1:19, 25) because washing and purifications were priestly business.
So, John the priest is baptizing Jesus into the priesthood. Numbers 8:5-7 describes the baptizmos, “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 6 ‘Take the Levites from among the people of Israel and cleanse them. 7 Thus you shall do to them to cleanse them: sprinkle the water of purification upon them, and let them go with a razor over all their body, and wash their clothes and cleanse themselves.’”
The Torah refers to several ceremonial washings, all of which may be regarded as baptisms, according to Hebrews 9:10. Most of these baptisms could be self-administered, such as bodily discharges (Lev. 15:5-27; Dt. 23:11), touching a carcass (Lev. 11:25-40), soldiers after battle (Num. 31:24), and more. But three of these baptisms were performed by another: washing from leprosy (Lev. 14:1-7), washing from contact with a corpse (Num. 19:1-22), and priestly consecration (Ex. 29:4-9; Lev. 8:6-7).
Israel had turned leprous. They were like a dead corpse. Their priesthood was corrupted. At Jesus’ baptism, he is publicly confirmed as a priest, as described in Numbers 8:5-7, as it had been done for thousands of years. At Jesus’ baptism, he is sprinkled with water out of obedience to Numbers 8:5-7.
Jesus understood his baptism as the moment he was anointed as a priest. When Jesus cleansed the temple (Mt. 21:12; Mk. 11:15), he was exercising his priestly authority. When the Jews ask by what authority he cleanses the temple, he cited that John baptized him. Since John’s baptism was from heaven, Jesus had truly been ordained as a priest and had authority to cleanse the temple.
Jesus’ baptism publicly declared him a Melchizedekal priest (Heb. 5:5f), rather than a Levitical priest (Gen. 14:18–20; Ps. 110:4; Heb. 5:5–6; 7:11–17). Jesus entered the greater priesthood (Heb. 7:22; 8:6), becoming the ultimate high priest of his people (Heb. 2:17; 4:14; 7:26-28), bearing their sin (Isa. 53:12; Heb. 9:28; 1 Pet. 2:24) as the anointed Christ (Isa. 61:1; Luke 4:18; Acts 10:38), the priestly representative of the people (Ex. 28:29, 38; Heb. 5:1). In his baptism by John, he became identified with them in their sin (Matt. 3:6, 13; Isa. 53:12; 2 Cor. 5:21), exile (Hos. 11:1; Matt. 2:15; Mark 1:12-13), and death (Mark 10:38; Luke 12:50; Rom. 6:3-4; Num. 35:25, 28). Jesus “went up from the water” (Mt. 3:16), a theologically loaded phrase that means Jesus received the inheritance of Israel for all those united to him by faith.
Why was Heaven Opened?
Matthew 3:16-17 says, “And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’”
Why was heaven opened? First, so the Spirit could rest upon Jesus. In the Old Testament, the heavens are opened so the Spirit can be poured on the earth (Is. 32:15; 41:17-19; 44:3-4; Ez. 36:24-30). Just like in Genesis 1:2 where the Spirit hovers like a bird above the waters of earth, at Jesus’ baptism the Spirit comes upon Jesus like pouring water. Matthew 3:16 says the Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove of peace (Lev. 5:7). As the dove returned to the ark with evidence of a new world (Gen. 8:15-19; 9:1-4), so the dove rests on Jesus as evidence of a new world. Now, the Spirit and the dove signify not the creation of the world, but the re-creation of a new world; not the generation of a world, but the regeneration of a world (Mt. 19:28). In this new world there is a new ark, Lord Jesus, who saves his people, “not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through … resurrection” (1 Pet. 3:21).
The second reason the heavens opened was so the voice of the Father could say of Jesus, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17). At creation, the Holy Spirit, purifying water, and Heavenly Father appear together and formed a world out of the void (Gen. 1:2). As Jesus baptism, they appear together and created a world—a priestly people—from the void of Israel’s rebellion.
“You are my Son” comes from Psalm 2, and identifies Jesus as the fulfillment of the promised Davidic king who will rule over the earth. In Genesis 22:2, God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, “your beloved son.” So, Jesus is not only the new David, he is a new Isaac, the promised seed (Gal. 3:15-18), born of the Spirit, offered as the sacrifice, only this time the knife will finish the job. The Heavenly Father will do what Abraham did not have to do, sacrifice his only Son (Jn. 3:16). “In whom I delight,” comes from Isaiah 42:1, meaning that Jesus is the one chosen to embody God’s covenant and take it to all the world, opening eyes, releasing prisoners, smashing idols, and judging unrighteous Israel (Is. 42:1-7).
Isaiah prayed, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence” (Is. 64:1). The baptism of Jesus is the answer to Isaiah’s prayer. Jesus’ baptism is in the background of Luke 4:16-19, where he reads from the prophet Isaiah and says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus is interpreting the Jordan experience.
Conclusion
Jesus was baptized into the priesthood. Christians are baptized into Christ (Rom. 6:1-4), which means the priestly fulfillment of Jesus’ ministry is shared with his people who become a royal priesthood (1 Pt. 2:9). God’s people form a new priestly nation, with a unique calling to be holy as Christ is holy (1 Pet. 1:13-21), to live the life that Christ lived (Gal. 2:20), because the water and the Spirit sprinkle the priestly character of Christ on the soul (Jn. 3:5-8).
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.
* Ben L. Rose, “Baptism by Sprinkling” (Southern Presbyterian Journal: Weaverville, 1949), 10-11.
See Also
Leithart, Peter J. The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2003.
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