The Baptism of Jesus
Mark
1:9 “And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from
Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.”
In
those days... At some unspecified time during John’s baptizing
ministry at the Jordan.
came
from Nazareth... An obscure village (not mentioned in the Old
Testament, or by Josephus, or in the Talmud), about 70 miles North of
Jerusalem, that did not enjoy a favorable reputation (John 1:46).
Jesus had apparently been living there before His public appearance
to Israel.
baptized
of John... Over John’s objections (Mat. 3:14), who saw no need for
the sinless Lamb of God (John 1:29), to participate in a baptism of
repentance (see verses 4-5); for an explanation of why Jesus was
baptized (see note on Mat. 3:15).
Jesus
did not need to repent of sin, but as the Messiah of Israel He
identified thoroughly with the people of Israel. He also would have
wished to show His support for John as God’s prophet. Jesus sought
this outward identification with John’s ministry to fulfill all
righteousness. By identifying Himself with those He came to redeem,
Jesus inaugurated His public ministry as the Messiah.
To
some people this would seem so unusual that the Savior of the world
would come to be baptized. Of course, Jesus had no sins to repent of.
He was without sin. In everything, Jesus is the ultimate example. I
believe this act of humbly coming to be baptized was simply an
example for us to follow.
There
had been very little heard of Jesus, since His trip with Mary and
Joseph to Jerusalem when He was twelve years old. We know that He
lived with His mother Mary, and Joseph, the man that the world
thought was His father. Joseph was a carpenter, and Jesus had worked
with Joseph in the carpenter’s shop.
I
believe a great deal went on that we are not told about in the
Scriptures in this interval, since He had been in the temple at
twelve.
The
statement: Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?
found (in Luke 2:49), tells us that Jesus had begun His heavenly
Father’s business.
The
fact that Mary knew that Jesus could turn water into wine at the
wedding indicates to me that this was the first recorded miracle, not
the first one. Jesus from the time He was twelve until the wine
incident was possibly ministering, but not formally for recorded
history. The Hebrew young men called to the ministry began at age
thirty.
John
the Baptist was a close relative of Jesus’ mother, Mary. It seems
that John’s message had traveled far, and Nazareth was not far from
the Jordan River. Jesus in prophecy, would be known as a Nazarene and
a Galilean. It is so simply stated here that Jesus was baptized of
John. The baptizer is not the important thing, the baptism is.
The
criticism which transforms our Lord’s part in these events to that
of a pupil is far more willful than would be tolerated in dealing
with any other record. And it too palpably springs from the need to
find some human inspiration for the Word of God, some candle from
which the Sun of Righteousness took fire, if one would escape the
confession that He is not of this world.
But
here we meet a deeper question: Not why Jesus accepted baptism from
an inferior, but why, being sinless, He sought for a baptism of
repentance. How is this act consistent with absolute and stainless
purity?
Now
it sometimes lightens a difficulty to find that it is not occasional
nor accidental but wrought deep into the plan of a consistent work.
And the Gospels are consistent in representing the innocence of Jesus
as refusing immunity from the consequences of guilt. He was
circumcised, and His mother then paid the offering commanded by the
law, although both these actions spoke of defilement. In submitting
to the likeness of sinful flesh He submitted to its conditions. He
was present at feasts in which national confessions led up to
sacrifice, and the sacrificial blood was sprinkled to make atonement
for the children of Israel, because of all their sins. When He tasted
death itself, which passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, He
carried out to the utmost the same stern rule to which at His baptism
He consciously submitted. Nor will any theory of His atonement
suffice, which is content with believing that His humiliations and
sufferings, though inevitable, were only collateral results of
contact with our fallen race. Baptism was avoidable, and that without
any compromise of His influence, since the Pharisees refused it with
impunity, and John would fain have exempted Him. Here at least He was
not "entangled in the machinery," but deliberately turned
the wheels upon Himself. And this is the more impressive because, in
another aspect of affairs, He claimed to be out of the reach of
ceremonial defilement, and touched without reluctance disease,
leprosy and the dead.
Humiliating
and penal consequences of sin, to these He bowed His head. Yet to a
confession of personal taint, never. And all the accounts agree that
He never was less conscience-stricken than when He shared the baptism
of repentance. St. Matthew implies, what St. Luke plainly declares,
that He did not come to baptism along with the crowds of penitents,
but separately. And at the point where all others made confession, in
the hour when even the Baptist, although filled with the Holy Ghost
from his mother’s womb, had need to be baptized, He only felt the
propriety, the fitness of fulfilling all righteousness. That mighty
task was not even a yoke to Him, it was an instinct like that of
beauty to an artist, it was what became Him.
Jesus’
baptism by John the Baptist
Jesus’
Baptism in the Jordan
Mark
abruptly introduced the Coming One (Mar. 1:7) as Jesus.
In contrast with all the people from Judea and Jerusalem (Mar. 1:5),
He came
to John
in the desert region from
Nazareth in Galilee.
Nazareth was an obscure village never mentioned in the Old Testament,
the Talmud, or the writings of Josephus, the well-known first-century
Jewish historian. Galilee, about 30 miles wide and 60 miles long, was
the populous northernmost region of the three divisions of Palestine:
Judea, Samaria, and Galilee.
John
baptized
Jesus in
(eis)
the
Jordan
River (cf. Mark 1:5). The Greek prepositions eis
(into, Mark 1:9) and ek
(out of, Mark 1:10) suggest baptism by immersion. Jesus’ baptism
probably occurred near Jericho. He was about 30 years old at this
time (Luke 3:23).
In
contrast with all others, Jesus made no confession of sins (cf. Mark
1:5) since He is without sin (cf. John 8:45-46; 2Cor. 5:21; Heb.
4:15; 1Jhn. 3:5). Mark did not state why Jesus submitted to John’s
baptism; however, three reasons may be suggested: (1) It was an act
of obedience, showing that Jesus was in full agreement with God’s
overall plan and the role of John’s baptism in it (cf. Mat. 3:15).
(2) It was an act of self-identification with the nation of Israel
whose heritage and sinful predicament He shared (cf. Isa. 53:12). (3)
It was an act of self-dedication to His messianic mission, signifying
His official acceptance and entrance into it.
