Jesus’ Baptism and Ours Gen 1:1-5; Ps 29:1-11; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11
Introduction https://youtube.com/watch?v=HRm6MU5hpV8&si=G6HfD1NRMgZzrMn6
Though the Bible speaks of “one baptism” uniting all Christians (Eph 4:5), but the Church has divided itself over the age of baptismal candidates, how much water to use, how it should be applied, and even whether believers should be baptised into the name of the “Lord Jesus Christ” or “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”. These confusions only cause divisions when we remove the power of Christ’s own baptism from the centre of all thinking. Baptism can only mean for us a share in what it originally meant for Jesus. Unfortunately, we live in a culture whose spiritual sensitivities untrained. A fellow Anglican preacher uses this illustration to help us understand the biblical meaning of the “sacrament’ of baptism. If a physicist writes E=mc² on a whiteboard no one expects to see a nuclear explosion that will vaporises everything. But in the Bible, “sacraments” are parables/symbolic stories of prophetic power which convey/impart what they symbolise.(https://www.saintmarksphiladelphia.org/sermons/2008/12/29/performative-utterance.html). This is perfectly revealed in the baptism of Jesus.
In the Beginning
In our first reading for today from Genesis the Spirit’s hovering over the waters of creation is a prophetic sign of his future descending and remaining with all-creative powers over Jesus at his baptism (Matt 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32; Acts 10:38). This is a foundational prophetic sign from the beginning of all things (1 Pet 1:19-20; Rev 13:8) that where sin would come to break the goodness of the first creation, the power of the Word in Christ will generate an unbreakable new creation (1 Pet 1:4, 23). Our reading from Psalm 29 likewise contains prophetic symbolism. In the Old Testament (Gen 6:17; Am 5:8), water often stands for a destructive force over which only the Word of God (Ps 29:3,10) has power. In WA we tend to forget the terror of floods, but last time I was over east I couldn’t miss the ads on trains and billboards warning of the dangers of thunderstorms. Whereas water represents a powerful threat to human life, Jesus’ voluntary immersion symbolises his Kingship over any power threatening to destroy us (Ps 93). This brings us to the baptism of Jesus itself.
The Baptism of Christ
The narrative of the baptism of Christ has numerous connections to the Old Testament. When Jesus “saw the heavens being torn open” he understood that original arrangement separating 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.” Ps 115:16), 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 God’s kingdom 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 as he prayed at this baptism (cf. Luke 3:21). The heavens were never harsh and unresponsive for Christ (cf. “like brass” Deut 28:23), in whom we enjoy an ever-open heaven. The Spirit descending like a dove on the Lord at the Jordan was a prophetic sign that as in the days of Noah the settling of the dove on the earth meant grace will triumph over a flood of judgement (Gen 8:9ff cf. James 2:13). [Though we couldn’t locate a photo of this, when] visiting the baptism site some years ago the sun was surrounded by a unusual rainbow as a sign that Jesus was baptised, as we are in him, into the fulness of the sphere of God’s blessing (Rom 15:29; Eph 1:3).
‘And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”’ This voice of the Father (cf. Deut 4:12; 5:4, 24), has multiple sources from the Old Testament. [One is with the promise God made to David concerning a coming son and King who will rule the nations (2 Sam 7:11-19; Ps 2:7; 89:26-29).] The voice of the Father at Jesus’ baptism identifies him 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 him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” (Isa 42:1 cf. 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13 – 53:12). This is a word charged with hope for those in darkness.
This text tells us that God has a “soul”, he has inner feelings that embrace everything from the depths of grief to ecstatic happiness. This revelation supercharges our understanding of ourselves in the image of God (Gen 1:26-28; Col 1:15). This story grows deeper and deeper.
The climax of the connections between Jesus’ baptism and the Old Testament is its 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 the “beloved Son” of God is launched at baptism on a prophetic mission culminating in a humiliating death that will however save the world (John 3:16). [Although only mentioned by Luke, Jesus was about thirty years old at the time he came to the Jordan river (Luke 3:23). Thirty was the age of commencement for old covenant priestly service (Num 4:3).] As the old covenant 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 for his own upcoming priestly sacrifice.
The baptism of Jesus seals his commitment to die in the place of us sinners to whom baptism and the confession of sin properly belong (Mark 1:5). How do the profound realities of the baptism of our Lord apply to us? Firstly, we need to overcome some common confusions about baptism.
Christian Baptism
In our reading from Acts 19:1-7 Paul comes across a group of “disciples” at Ephesus. Since they had never even heard of the Holy Spirit and had only been baptised with the baptism of John (v.2-3) they were almost certainly disciples of John the Baptist (cf. Matt 9:14; 11:2). Whereas John’s baptism was “a baptism of repentance for/ with a view towards the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4), only hearing the gospel of Christ could induct them into the full and final forgiveness that has come in Jesus (Heb 9:22; John 1:29; Heb 7:25). When these disciples of John heard the gospel, their spiritual eyes were opened (Eph 1:18) to all that the promised Christ had achieved for them, so that as Paul laid his hands on them they were cleansed from guilt and spontaneously filled with the Spirit. This fulfilled the apostle’s later words, “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Tit 3:4-6). These disciples were filled, as we all can be, with overflowing joy, power and inspired speech (Acts 19:6). Having been baptised into Christ and all his benefits their energy in the Lord was uncontainable [cf. my own unforgettable “baptism in the Spirit” as a young Christian, tears love joy for hours]. The story of the disciples as Ephesus testifies to how the power of the baptism of Jesus overflows into every Christian baptism.
Application
The baptism of Jesus filled him with an overwhelming sense of the Father’s pleasure and empowered him in the Spirit to resist all temptation and every attack of the devil. This how he was enabled endure the sufferings of the cross for us. Tragically, today, the lives of so many baptised Christians are weak, listless, and uninspiring because we in our ignorance have separated our baptism from the power of Jesus’ baptism in a way that the Father, Son and Spirit have 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 all creative power of God, for you were united with Jesus in a baptism like his (Rom 6:4; 8:14-16). The power of baptism flows into us to the degree we see Christ as the primary focus of every 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). To put it most simply, 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.
How do these dynamics relate to infant baptism. [Even though they knew there was no New Testament examples of infant baptism] the Protestant Reformers accepted this form of baptism as a perfect illustration of the free grace of the gospel given to the weak and helpless. They grasped that the one true responsible and consenting Adult, the one true man of faith (Gal 2:1; Heb 12:2), Jesus, was baptised in the place of su all, infant or adult (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 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 itself adds nothing to the completed and objective work of Christ’s descent, death, resurrection, and ascension. However, the power of Christ’s perfected work is made real in our experience only when we are baptised in the Spirit of the Lord (1 Cor 12:13).]
Conclusion
Baptism is the sacrament which initiates God’s people into the new creation existence which has come in Jesus (cf. Matt 19:28) with full and free forgiveness and the enjoyment of resurrection-eternal life. We have been baptised not only into Jesus’ experience at the Jordan, but into everything he did for the Father in the Spirit’s power on our behalf during his earthly Advent, and beyond. Through all that baptism symbolises/prophesies, we have entered into the realm of eternity. Baptism is God’s Word to us that for those united to Jesus everything has become new (Rev 21:5; 2 Cor 5:17). This new creation opened up to us in Christ is limitlessly more real than any of the passing things of this world (1 Cor 7:31). “Hallelujah.” [This is great and wonderful for us; but what about those who don’t know Jesus?]
To make an impact on this lost world we all need renewed revelation of what the baptism of Jesus meant to God. Luther 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 personally confronted by Satan he exclaimed in faith, “Behold, I am baptized, and I believe in Christ crucified.”] John Calvin rightly stressed that as our Father God “baptises” us as his children daily, he daily forgives our sins, happily receiving us as his children and sending us his Holy Spirit (Rom 8:14-16; Gal 3:5).
When Christians focus on the who (Jesus) rather than the what of baptism we will see that all our differences about the mode, means and eligibility for baptism pass into insignificance so we can live as one Body united for the glory of the lord. The Baptism of our Lord is that all – important.