Matthew 3:13-17 - Homiletics

The baptism of Jesus.

I. ITS REASON .

1 . He was made sin for us , though he was without sin. He came to be baptized; it was the purpose of his coming He would not have come that long journey from Galilee to Bethany beyond Jordan unless there had been some grave reason, some necessity, some deep meaning in his baptism. It was the baptism of repentance; he needed no repentance. It was accompanied with confession of sin; he could not confess, for he had no sin. But God had sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh; in some deep, mysterious sense "he was made sin for us." He bore the sin that was not his own. Therefore, as he submitted in his infancy to the rite of circumcision; as his mother, after the birth of the sinless Child, went through the ordinary purification; so now when he was about to begin his ministry, the Most Holy One came to the baptism of repentance. It seemed to John strange, unsuitable. He felt his own unworthiness in the presence of the Saviour. He himself, he knelt, needed the baptism of the Holy Ghost; the Lord needed not the baptism of repentance. And so he would have hindered him. He had hindered, it seems most probable, the Pharisees and Sadducees. The reasons were very different. The Pharisees and Sadducees were not fit for his baptism; his baptism was not fit for Jesus. But the Lord who, in his ineffable condescension, had taken upon him the form of a servant, in that same condescension submitted to the rites which told of sin and uncleanness. He was baptized, not that he might be cleansed by the baptism of repentance, but rather, as Ignatius says in his 'Epistle to the Ephesians' (sect. 18), that he might by his baptism cleanse water and sanctify it to the mystical washing away of sin.

2 . It becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. God had sent John to baptize with water ( John 1:33 ). The Son of God, now in the form of man, comes to the baptism which God had commanded. It is an example to us. It is our duty to fulfil all righteousness, all God's ordinances alike. We may not dare to neglect things external, things which some men call unimportant. If God has commanded them, that commandment gives them at once a deep and real importance; it makes them duties of righteousness. The principle of obedience is no less involved in things that seem to some small and trivial, than in the highest duties of religion. The Lord Jesus came to the baptism of John; no Christian man may dare to neglect the baptism of Jesus. For these reasons the Lord offered himself to be baptized. John knew him not at first. He must have heard of him from his parents; he must have known something of the wondrous birth at Bethlehem, and of his own destination to go before the face of the Lord in the spirit and power of Elias. But the two cousins had been long separated from each other; they had grown up far apart; John had lived a solitary life in the wilderness of Judea; Jesus had lived unknown and unregarded in the quiet town of Nazareth. John did not recognize him at first; but he felt the power of his presence. Holy himself, he reverenced that majesty of unearthly holiness which beamed from the calm, sad, gracious eyes of the Saviour of the world. His heart told him that it was a most sacred Person who sought his baptism—a sinless, a Divine Presence that stood before him. His hopes were kindled, his soul filled with intense, eager anticipations. Surely it must be he that should come, the long-expected One. The descent of the Holy Ghost revealed the Messiah ( John 1:33 ). But now a strange feeling of unworthiness came over him. A deep instinct prompted him to say, like Peter," Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" It is ever so with his saints. The nearer we draw to Christ, the more fully the Lord manifests himself to us, the more we feel our own utter sinfulness and weakness. But the Lord, who in his gracious lowliness came to John the Baptist, comes to his people still. John shrank from his awful purity at first; he suffered him when he heard his reassuring words. It is a parable of the experience of many an awakened soul. He seems so awful in his majesty, in his spotless holiness, and we so feeble, defiled with so many sins; but he allures us with his tender pity, he speaks comfortably to our souls, till we welcome the Lord into our heart, seeking henceforth to live always in that blessed fellowship which is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

II. THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION .

1 . He went up straightway out of the water. There seems to be meaning in these words. His baptism was a consecration for his great and blessed office. Son of God though he was, he had, in the mysterious union of the human and Divine, increased in wisdom from childhood to manhood; and now, it may be, the full consciousness of his Divine mission, the full clear knowledge of the awful, the most blessed, work which lay before him, dawned upon his holy human soul. He went up straightway; immediately, as he emerged from the baptismal waters, he went up prepared for his work; immediately he arose in the strength of holy purpose and self-sacrificing love. He had lived hitherto in the quiet life of lowly obedience; now he was manifested as the great High Priest, the Messiah, the Anointed One. Priests under the Law received at their consecration the baptismal purification and the anointing of the holy oil. The Lord Jesus, now about to enter upon his three years' ministry, submitted to the baptism of repentance, and was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power.

2 . The heavens were opened. Paradise was closed to Adam; heaven is opened to Christ. The sin of Adam closed the way to Paradise; the obedience of the incarnate Son opens heaven to all who follow him. As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. "He hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus;" "Our citizenship is in heaven." Our treasure must be there, our heart must be in that heaven which wan opened at the baptism of Jesus to all his true disciples. Heaven was opened over him at his baptism. It is opened over those who are baptized by his commandment into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. For holy baptism admits us into covenant with God: "In one Spirit were we all baptized into one body"—the mystical body of Christ. The members of that body are bound by their baptism to obey the laws of the kingdom of heaven, and to live as citizens of the heavenly commonwealth. "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth." They who, by his grace, abide in spiritual union with Christ snail one day, like the holy martyr Stephen, see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.

3 . The descent of the Holy Spirit. The Lord was conceived by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost was with him always; for in the indissoluble union of the Divine Persons, the Holy Three are One. But this was a consecration of the incarnate Son, God and Man, to his sacred office—a grand and heavenly anointing, visible to himself and to the Baptist. "I saw the Spirit," said John, "descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him." God anointed him with the Holy Ghost ( Acts 10:38 ). God the Father consecrated his incarnate Son by this Divine anointing. Now he was revealed as the Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek; the King to whom the Lord God would give the throne of his father David; the Prophet who would declare to the faithful all that we need to know, all that we can know while we are in the flesh, of that God whom no man hath seen at any time. "The Spirit descended like a dove;" it descended on him who was dove-like, holy, harmless, undefiled. It found a resting-place in the holy heart of Jesus. Stilt the blessed Spirit is brooding, dove-like, over the face of the world; still he descends, another Comforter, sent by the Father at the prayer of him on whom he now descended, on those who are learning of the Lord Christ to be themselves pure in heart, gentle, harmless, holy. With such he abides for ever, a gracious, willing Guest. Such men he consecrates with a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

4 . The voice from heaven. The Father's voice was heard: "This is my beloved Son." How the heart of John the Baptist must have thrilled at the sound of the awful, holy words] It was the Christ indeed, the Only Begotten of the Father. John stood in the presence of the Most Holy One. So doth the Christian heart thrill now when the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed to the soul; when the believer feels that he is in the presence of God, alone with God—solus cure solo ; when the heavenly voice is borne in upon his heart; when he knows that his Redeemer liveth. "This is my beloved Son," whom God the Father had loved before the beginning of the world, whom he loved now, always, with an eternal love; in whom he loves all those to whom the beloved Son hath given power to become the sons of God. In that beloved Son God was well pleased—well pleased always, well pleased now in the mysterious self-sacrifice of his incarnation, of his perfect obedience. Those who trust that they, too, being led by the Spirit of God, are in a true, though infinitely lower sense, the sons of God, must try to please him; it must be their highest ambition, whether present or absent, to be well-pleasing in his sight. As they draw nearer to him, serving him with a holier, humbler, obedience, the heavenly voice will grow clearer, more distinct, owning them to be his sons and daughters, the children of his love.

5 . The revelation of the blessed Trinity. At the baptism of Jesus by the hand of John, the Holy Three were present—God the Son manifest in the flesh; God the Holy Ghost descending in a dove-like form; God the Father speaking from heaven, recognizing in Jesus, God and Man, the only begotten Son of his love. It was a manifestation of the eternal mystery—the mystery before which we bow in the lowliest adoration of loving faith. In Christian baptism, the sacrament which the Lord Jesus Christ himself ordained, the Name of the blessed Three is by the Lord's commandment pronounced over the new disciple: "Baptizing them into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." The Name is One, the Persons are Three. The doctrine of the blessed Trinity is enshrined in holy baptism.

LESSONS .

1 . Imitate the Lord Jesus; use all the means of grace; observe all the ordinances of religion. It becometh us to do as he did.

2 . Heaven is opened to the eye of faith; it was opened to the dying Stephen. Steadfastly look up to heaven. See God in all his ordinances.

3 . Pray earnestly for fuller gifts of the Holy Ghost. The dove-like Spirit is given to the dove-like heart.

4 . Seek earnestly to be well-pleasing to God in all things.