The Baptism of our Lord 10/1/21 Gen 1:1-5; Ps 29:1-11; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11
Introduction
The bible teaches of the one baptism uniting all Christians (Eph 4:5), but the Church is divided over the age of baptismal candidates, how much water and how it should be applied, and even into whose name, the “Lord Jesus Christ” or “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”, into which believers are baptised. These confusions all ultimately arise from not giving sufficient centrality to our Lord’s own baptism. Baptism can only mean for us a share in what it originally meant for Jesus.
In the Beginning
When I originally looked at our first reading for today, Genesis 1:1-5, I couldn’t see its relevance to the topic of baptism, but having thought and prayed over this (especially in the light of 2 Peter 3:5),we should see the Spirit hovering over the precreation waters as a prefiguring of the coming of the Spirit who hovered with his all creative powers over Jesus as the Word of God at his baptism (Matt 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). Sin would break the goodness of the first world, but Christ will generate an eternal new creation. There is even more prophetic symbolism attached in our reading from Psalm 29. As it often does in the Old Testament (Gen 6:17; Am 5:8), water stands for a destructive force over which only the word of the one true God (vv. 3,10) has power. In WA it’s easy to forget such things, but we have recently come home from Queensland where there are ads on the trains warning of the dangers of thunderstorms. Thankfully, the Lord who is King over any power which could conceivably destroy us. This background brings us to the baptism of Jesus itself.
The Baptism of Christ
The narrative of the baptism of Christ is one of the richest parts of scripture because it contains multiple connections to Old Testament images. When Jesus “saw the heavens being torn open” he saw that the original arrangement that separated the realm of God from that of humans had ended (Gen 1:6-7). The psalmist correctly said, “The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man.”, but Jesus is the Creator-Lord who unites heaven and earth in himself (Eph 1:10). Centuries before the coming of Jesus Isaiah cried out for the coming of the kingdom of God with power to restore order to the world, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down…” (Isa 64:1-2). This plea was answered for Jesus (cf. Luke 3:21). The heavens were never harsh and unresponsive, brass-like, before Jesus (cf. Deut 28:23; John 11:41), the baptism of Jesus assures us that in Christ we enjoy an ever-open heaven. The Spirit descending like a dove is a powerful sign that as in the days of Noah grace will triumph over judgement (Gen 8:9ff; James 2:13).
‘And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”’ The voice is that of the Father (cf. Deut 4:12; 5:4, 24) and it has multiple echoes from the Old Testament. One is with the promise the Lord made to David concerning a coming King (2 Sam 7:11-19; Ps 2:7; 89:26-29) who will rule over all things. The voice of God identifies Jesus as the long-anticipated Messiah. The words of encouragement, “with you I am well pleased” come from a passage concerning the so-called Servant of the Lord in Isaiah “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” (Isa 42:1 cf. 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13 – 53:12).
I think however that the climax of the connections between Jesus’ baptism and the Old Testament is the link with Genesis (22:2), where God commands Abraham, “take your beloved son, Isaac….and go offer him…as a burnt offering on one of the mountains”. In an atmosphere saturated with the power of the Spirit and the pleasure of the Father Jesus’ baptism launches him on a prophetic mission which will culminate in a humiliating death that will however save the world.
Although only mentioned by Luke, Jesus was about thirty years old at the time of his baptism (Luke 3:23). This was the age of commencement for old covenant priestly service (Num 4:3). As the High Priest prepared for his atonement – day ministry of offering sacrifice by washing and anointing (Lev 16:4), Jesus receives the washing of baptism and the anointing of the Holy Spirit with a view to his own priestly sacrifice. The baptism of Jesus seals his commitment to die in the place of sinners to whom baptism and the confession of sin properly belong (Mark 1:5). These are great things, but what does the all-sufficient baptism of our Lord open up for us?
Christian Baptism
Our final reading is from Acts 19:1-7 where Paul comes across a group of “disciples” at Ephesus. Some people think they are untaught Christian disciples, but that they had never even heard of the Holy Spirit and had only been baptised with the baptism of John (v.2-3) strongly suggests that they were followers of John the Baptist (Matt 9:14; 11:2).
Whereas John’s baptism was “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4), it was a baptism with a view towards the forgiveness that could only come in fulness and finality through the coming of Jesus and the shedding of his blood on the cross (Heb 9:22) which would “take away” the sin of the world (John 1:29).
When the disciples of John heard the gospel from Paul their spiritual eyes were opened (Eph 1:18) to all that Jesus had achieved for them so as Paul laid his hands on them they were cleansed from all guilt and were spontaneously filled with the Spirit, so much so that this joy and power overflowed in tongues and prophecy (Acts 19:6). They had been baptised into Christ and all his benefits. This story was included in Acts to show us how the true power of the baptism of Jesus overflows into Christian baptism.
Application
If the baptism of Jesus filled him with an overwhelming sense of the Father’s pleasure and empowered him in the Spirit to resist all the attacks of the devil, evil men and to endure the sufferings which were to come why do the lives of so many Christian people seem so weak, listless and uninspiring even though we have been baptised in Christ’s name? Generally speaking, through ignorance and/or unbelief we have separated the power of Jesus’ baptism from our baptism in a way that the Father, Son and Spirit do not!
When you were baptised in the name of “the Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19) you were immersed in the word of the Father “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”, you were hovered over by the Spirit as the eternal giving gift of God and you were united with Jesus in a baptism like his (Rom 6:4; 8:14-16). The power of baptism in our lives flows form our seeing Christ as the primary focus of baptism. What baptism means for us derives from what it meant for Jesus; he freely gives us what he received through his own baptism (Rom 8:32). Jesus was baptised for us, baptised for the purpose of including us in his great work of putting to death the old broken creation on the cross and raising up a new creation in resurrection.
Because they understood baptism as a perfect illustration of the free grace of the gospel the great Protestant Reformers (Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox) accepted the validity of infant baptism. They grasped that the one true Adult i.e., Jesus, had been baptised in their place (cf. Eph 4:13). The effectiveness of baptism is not in the rite or in the water or in ordinary human faith but in the faithfulness of Christ. The tenses of baptism are passive and past tenses about what God has achieved for us in Christ, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Rom 6:4 cf. Col 2:12). Baptism adds nothing to the completed, finished, and objective work of Christ’s descent, death, resurrection and ascension. Having said this, however none of this is real in our experience without our being baptised in the Spirit of the Lord.
Conclusion
Baptism is the sacrament which initiates God’s people into the new creation which has come in Jesus (cf. Matt 19:28) where forgiveness is full and free and the quality of life is resurrection-eternal life. We have been baptised not only into Jesus’ experience at the Jordan but into everything he did on our behalf during the course of his earthly Advent. In Christ, through all baptism symbolises, we have entered into the realm of eternity. Baptism is God’s clear Word to us that for those united to Jesus everything has become new (Rev 21:5; 2 Cor 5:17). Every day we can cry “Hallelujah” for this new creation opened up to us in Jesus is limitlessly more real than any of the passing things of this world (1 Cor 7:31). This is all great and wonderful for us, but what about those who don’t know Jesus?
To make an impact on this lost world for Christ we need all new revelation of what the baptism of Jesus meant to God. Luther correctly exhorted the daily study of baptism as the putting to death of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new humanity in Christ. When confronted by Satan he exclaimed in faith, “Behold, I am baptized, and I believe in Christ crucified.” John Calvin truly stressed that as our Father God baptises his children daily, in the sense of forgiving our sins, happily receiving us as his children and sending us the Spirit (Rom 8:14-16).
It is time for Christians to focus on the who (Jesus) rather than the what of baptism, then we would see all our differences about the mode means and eligibility for baptism would pass into insignificance and live united for the glory of the lord. The Baptism of our Lord carries that much glory.