This is a narrative which authenticates itself. No Christian writer of a later generation would have invented a story of the baptism of Jesus by John; nor could any current ideas have started a myth in this form. The very difficulties of the story prove its historicity.

I. LET US INQUIRE WHAT WAS THE MEANING OF THE BAPTISM OF JESUS.

1. Note some errors to be avoided.

(1) This was not a baptism of repentance. John saw that, and although lie did not yet know who Jesus was, the pure and spotless life of his mysterious Relative was evidently not unknown to him. He saw that Jesus did. not need the baptism as it was commonly understood.

(2) This was not a mere form. Christ continually contended against the hypocrisy of formalism. He could not have begun his public life with a purely formal action.

(3) This was not only intended as an example for others. In that case the action of Christ would have been simply a theatrical performance, unworthy of him, not to be countenanced by the serious Baptist. Moreover, the results of the baptism show that it had to do directly with the Person and work of Christ.

2. Consider the truths of the incident. Baptism has a double meaning. It looks forward as well as backward. As a rite in regard to the future it is a dedication, an act of self-consecration. Jesus had no sins of the past to wash out; but there was a great future to which he would dedicate himself in baptism. Then he was a Man, and he was humbling himself to the whole round of human duties. It was not in accordance with his mission that he should abandon the religious duties of his day. On the contrary, it was incumbent on him to "fulfil all righteousness" in connection with them. Thus the method of his self-consecration was an act of lowly obedience in connection with the deepest religious movement of the time.

II. LET US LOOK AT THE RESULTS OF THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. There were a vision and a voice.

1. The vision.

(1) The heavens opened. Self-surrender brings us near to God. The heavens open over the head of the utterly unselfish and truly consecrated man.

(2) The descending Spirit. The Spirit comes to Christ, and is in him without measure (John 3:34). The form was symbolical, but the fact was real. After this Christ displayed powers in miracle-working and teaching which he had never shown before. If Jesus needed this endowment of the Spirit, much more do we need it.

(3) The form of the dove. This is very significant. The Spirit takes many forms. On Jesus it appears in love and gentleness. "A bruised reed shall he not break." This form of the manifestation is peculiarly true to the nature of the Spirit. God is most of all present in "the still, small voice." By his gentleness he makes us great (Psalm 18:35).

2. The voice. The vision was especially for Christ's benefit. The evangelist says that "he saw the Spirit of God," etc., as though the people did not see the dove descending. John also saw the vision (John 1:32), and probably no one else. But the voice is not thus restricted. The spiritual grace is personal, for Christ himself; the revelation of the Son of God is for all who have ears to hear. - W.F.A.

I. The circumstance of TITLE.

1. Seasonable. Men were at this time being baptized and confessing their sins. People were expecting the Christ (John 1:19). Let man be diminished, but let God arise. The truth is revealed that the servant may not rob the Master of His honour.

2. This adverb of time points to the age of Christ. Mature age. He taught the need of well-seasoned timber to make pillars for the Church of God. As Christ attained perfect age in nature, His servants should be perfect in grace and glory.

II. After WHAT MANNER HE WOULD BE BAPTIZED.

1. Upon what ground did John begin this new ceremony: It betokened the end of the old ceremonies. Superstitions turned into a blessing. Heathen used washings. Turned into an immortal laver.

2. The dignity of John's baptism. It was the baptism of repentance. It did not lack grace. But Christ's ministry is better than man's.Distinctions between the two baptisms.

1. John baptized in the name of the Messiah. Christ bade His disciples use another form.

2. They differ in extent — John baptized in the regions of Judaea, Christ bade His disciples to except none.

3. Christ's baptism transcends John's in the variety of persons.

4. Christ's baptism is more operative since He has gone to His Father.

5. John's baptism was good, Christ's is necessary to the end of the world.

(Hacket.)

1. John was jealous of our Saviour's honour.

2. He confesses his vileness and inferiority.

(Hacket.)Faith is nothing else but a long-continued astonishment, which knows not how to utter itself, because the Lord hath done such marvellous things for us.

(Hacket.)

What so Divine an instigation to press us all to come unto the flood of living waters, to thirst for that immortal spring of grace than this, that the Son of God Himself did not decline to be partaker of the baptism of repentance. To make the sacrament virtuous and powerful for them that should take it after Him. That by His example, to undergo a new rite and ordinance, men might be drawn from old customs to newness of life.

(Hacket.)

As Caesar did not lessen his own dignity, because he would both command as General, and yet work in the trenches like the meanest pioneer, Dux confilio, miles exemplo; and as Helen, the mother of Constantine, was not under the honour of a princess, because she would dress the blains and ulcers of poor cripples in the hospital; so the mighty Son of God was not diminished in His glory, because He put Himself into the rank of abject ones by His own yielding and accord, not by compulsive necessity.

(Hacket.)

I. We should sincerely FEEL THE WANT OF A DIVINE REDEEMER. When Jesus demands baptism of John, the latter -publicly declares: "I have need to be baptized of Thee."

II. WE SHOULD ACKNOWLEDGE THE WISE COUNSELS OF GOD.

III. WE SHOULD ADMIRE THE GRANDEUR AND MAJESTY WITH WHICH JESUS WAS ENCOMPASSED. "We beheld our Saviour encompassed by a glory which transcends the most enchanting pageantry of nature.

(From the Danish of Dr. Balle.)

I. The office of John was to awaken the conscience of mankind.

II. John had a ministry of separation.

III. John was a forerunner in pointing to Christ.

IV. John was to identify Christ.

(Sermons by the Monday Club.)

We can only allude to meanings which have been discovered in it; all of them, it may be, parts of its largest import. It "was to ratify the mission of John; it was to purify the water of baptism. Christ .was ceremonially unclean, as representing sinners. St. Bernard sees in the baptism the exhibition of perfect humility; and Meyer, of perfect obedience. Still others look upon the baptism as an inaugural announcement, a formal identification, of His Person as the Messiah — an inauguration of His Messianic ministry. It is important to notice certain respects in which the baptism was unlike that of the people.

1. It was at the close of the day. He waited until all the penitents of that day had been baptized; in this, as in all else involving sin, separate from sinners.

2. John did not treat Christ as a sinner. He gave Him the remarkable testimony, "I have need to be baptized of Thee."

3. At Jesus' baptism there was no confession of sin. In the place of confession was a prayer.

4. The promised token, the descent of the Spirit as a dove, which abode upon Him, while a voice from heaven said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

(Sermons by the Monday Club.)

Esaias, Isaiah, Jesus, JohnGalilee, Jerusalem, Jordan River, JudeaBaptised, Baptism, Baptized, Comest, Deter, Forbad, Forbidding, Hindered, John, Kept, Prevent, Prevented, Protested, Saying, Tried, Urgently1. John preaches: his office, life, and baptism.
7. He reprimands the Pharisees,
13. and baptizes Jesus in Jordan.

Matthew 3:14

     8276   humility

Matthew 3:1-15

     5098   John the Baptist

Matthew 3:3-15

     5098   John the Baptist

Matthew 3:13-15

     2036   Christ, humility
     5379   law, Christ's attitude

Matthew 3:13-17

     2078   Christ, sonship of
     7906   baptism, in Gospels

Matthew 3:14-15

     6696   necessity

February 14. "He Shall Baptize You with Fire" (Matt. Iii. 11).
"He shall baptize you with fire" (Matt. iii. 11). Fire is strangely intense and intrinsic. It goes into the very substance of things. It somehow blends with every particle of the thing it touches. There are the severe trials that come to minds more sensitive, to the minds that have more points of contact with what hurts; so that the higher the nature the higher the joy, and the greater the avenues of pain that come. And then there are deeper trials that come as we pass into the hands of God, as we …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

The Baptism in Fire
'He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.'--MATT. iii. 11 There is no more pathetic figure in Scripture than that of the forerunner of our Lord. Lonely and ascetic, charged to light against all the social order of which he was a part, seeing many of his disciples leave him for another master; then changing the free wilderness for a prison cell, and tortured by morbid doubts; finally murdered as the victim of a profligate woman's hate and a profligate man's perverse sense of honour: …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Dove of God
'He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him.' MATT. iii. 16. This Gospel of Matthew is emphatically the gospel of the Kingdom. It sets forth Jesus as the long-promised Messiah, the Son of David. And this conception of Him and of His work, whilst it runs through the whole of the Gospel, is more obviously influential in shaping the selection of incidents and colouring the cast of the language, in the early portion. Hence the genealogy with which the Gospel begins dwells …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Herald of the King
'In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, 2. And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 3. For this is He that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. 4. And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. 5. Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Baptism of Jesus
'Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. 14. But John forbad Him, saying, I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me? 15. And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered Him. 16. And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: 17. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Repentance,
And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of Heaven is at band.--MATT. iii. 2. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.--MATT. iv. 17. "Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: but shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Qentiles, that they should repent and torn to God, and do works meet for repentance."--ACTS xxvi. 19,20. In the mouths of three …
Catherine Booth—Godliness

John the Baptist's Person and Preaching.
(in the Wilderness of Judæa, and on the Banks of the Jordan, Occupying Several Months, Probably a.d. 25 or 26.) ^A Matt. III. 1-12; ^B Mark I. 1-8; ^C Luke III. 1-18. ^b 1 The beginning of the gospel [John begins his Gospel from eternity, where the Word is found coexistent with God. Matthew begins with Jesus, the humanly generated son of Abraham and David, born in the days of Herod the king. Luke begins with the birth of John the Baptist, the Messiah's herald; and Mark begins with the ministry …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Jesus Baptized by John in the Jordan.
(Jordan East of Jericho, Spring of a.d. 27.) ^A Matt. III. 13-17; ^B Mark I. 9-11; ^C Luke III. 21-23. ^b 9 And { ^a 13 Then} ^b it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came { ^a cometh} ^b from Nazareth of Galilee, ^a to the Jordan [Tradition fixes upon a ford of Jordan east of Jericho as the place where Jesus was baptized. It is the same section of the river which opened for the passage of Israel under Joshua, and later for Elijah and Elisha. This ford is seventy or eighty miles from Nazareth] …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

In the Fifteenth Year of Tiberius Cæsar and under the Pontificate of Annas and Caiaphas - a Voice in the Wilderness
THERE is something grand, even awful, in the almost absolute silence which lies upon the thirty years between the Birth and the first Messianic Manifestation of Jesus. In a narrative like that of the Gospels, this must have been designed; and, if so, affords presumptive evidence of the authenticity of what follows, and is intended to teach, that what had preceded concerned only the inner History of Jesus, and the preparation of the Christ. At last that solemn silence was broken by an appearance, …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

The Baptism of Jesus: Its Higher Meaning.
The more we think of it, the better do we seem to understand how that Voice crying in the wilderness: Repent! for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,' awakened echoes throughout the land, and brought from city, village, and hamlet strangest hearers. For once, every distinction was levelled. Pharisee and Sadducee, outcast publican and semi-heathen soldier, met here as on common ground. Their bond of union was the common hope of Israel' - the only hope that remained: that of the Kingdom.' The long winter …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

The Baptism with the Holy Spirit.
One of the most deeply significant phrases used in connection with the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures is "baptized with the Holy Ghost." John the Baptist was the first to use this phrase. In speaking of himself and the coming One he said, "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire" (Matt. iii. 11). The second "with" in this passage is in italics. It is …
R. A. Torrey—The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit

Conversion --Human Agency In
What part and responsibility pertain to the human will in this matter? Before we leave the subject of conversion, it is important that we consider and understand this question also. For on this point also grievous and dangerous views and practices prevail. Human nature tends to extremes. Here too, there is a tendency to go too far, either in the one direction or the other. There are those, on the one hand, who virtually and practically make this change of heart and of nature a human work. They …
G. H. Gerberding—The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church

The Present, a Dispensation of Means.
We have seen that the carnal, sinful nature of the child unfits it for the kingdom of heaven; that, therefore, there must be a change in that nature, even the birth of a new life, and the life of a new creature, before there can be either part or lot in the kingdom of God. We have also expressed our firm conviction that it is the good and gracious will of God in Christ to bestow upon the poor sin-sick and unholy child the Grace needed to so change it as to make it a partaker of His great salvation. …
G. H. Gerberding—The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church

Oration on the Holy Lights.
Oration on the Holy Lights. The Oration on the Holy Lights was preached on the Festival of the Epiphany 381, and was followed the next day by that on Baptism. In the Eastern Church this Festival is regarded as more particularly the commemoration of our Lord's Baptism, and is accordingly one of the great days for the solemn ministration of the Sacrament. It is generally called Theophania, and the Gospel in the Liturgy is S. Matthew iii. 13-17. The Sunday in the Octave is called meta ta phota (After …
St. Cyril of Jerusalem—Lectures of S. Cyril of Jerusalem

Power --Its Source
In vain do the inhabitants of London go to their conduits for supply unless the man who has the master-key turns the water on; and in vain do we think to quench our thirst at ordinances, unless God communicates the living water of His Spirit.--Anon. It was the custom of the Roman emperors, at their triumphal entrance, to cast new coins among the multitudes; so doth Christ, in His triumphal ascension into heaven, throw the greatest gifts for the good of men that were ever given.--T. Goodwin. To …
Dwight L. Moody—Secret Power

My Beloved is White and Ruddy, the Chiefest among Ten Thousand.
My Well-beloved, replies the Spouse, is white by His purity, innocence and simplicity. He is ruddy by His charity, and because He has chosen to be dyed and purpled in His own blood. He is white by His frankness, ruddy by the fire of His love. He is chiefest among ten thousand, that is to say, He is above all I have chosen and preferred Him to every other. His Father has chosen Him above all the children of men as His Beloved Son in whom He is well pleased (Matt. iii. 17). In short, if you would know, …
Madame Guyon—Song of Songs of Solomon

"Because I have Lived So Many Years"
Monday, 20.--We embarked between three and four in the morning, in a very small, inconvenient sloop, and not a swift sailer; [38] so that we were seven hours in sailing what is called seven leagues. About eleven we landed at St. Helier, and went straight to Mr. Brackenbury's house. It stands very pleasantly, near the end of the town; it has a large, convenient garden, with a lovely range of fruitful hills, which rise at a small distance from it. I preached in the evening to an exceedingly serious …
John Wesley—The Journal of John Wesley

The King's Herald.
"On Jordan's banks the Baptist's cry Announces that the Lord is nigh; Awake and hearken, for he brings Glad tidings of the King...." When the Saviour of the world was about to enter upon His public ministry, the Jewish nation was startled with the cry, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" (S. Matt. iii. 2). Such was God's call to His people of old time, to prepare themselves to take part in the fulfilment of the promises, on which their faith and hopes were founded. The fulness of the times had come; …
Edward Burbidge—The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it?

The Synoptic Gospels
ALL the gospels describe the sufferings and death of Christ with a minuteness which has no parallel in their narratives of other events of His life, and they all, to a certain extent, by references to the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy or otherwise, indicate their sense of its meaning and importance. This, however, reveals the mind of the evangelists rather than that of the Lord. It is in His life, rather than in the record of His death itself, that we must look for indications of His mind. …
James Denney—The Death of Christ

Repentance and Restitution.
"God commandeth all men everywhere to repent."--Acts xvii. 30. Repentance is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Bible. Yet I believe it is one of those truths that many people little understand at the present day. There are more people to-day in the mist and darkness about Repentance, Regeneration, the Atonement, and such-like fundamental truths, than perhaps on any other doctrines. Yet from our earliest years we have heard about them. If I were to ask for a definition of Repentance, a great …
Dwight L. Moody—The Way to God and How to Find It

Christ's Priestly Office
Q-35: HOW DOES CHRIST EXECUTE THE OFFICE OF A PRIEST? A: In his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us. 'Now once in the end of the world has he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.' Heb 9:96. What are the parts of Christ's priestly office? Christ's priestly office has two parts - his satisfaction and intercession. I. His Satisfaction; and this consists of two branches. [1] His active …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The First Ministry of the Baptist.
(LUKE III.) "Hark, what a sound, and too divine for hearing, Stirs on the earth and trembles in the air! Is it the thunder of the Lord's appearing? Is it the music of his people's prayer? "Surely He cometh, and a thousand voices Shout to the saints, and to the deaf and dumb; Surely He cometh, and the earth rejoices, Glad in his coming who hath sworn, I come." F. W. H. MYERS. The Preaching of Repentance--His Power as a Preacher--His Message--Warning of Impending Judgment--The Wages of Sin Thirty …
F. B. Meyer—John the Baptist

From the Birth to the Ascension of Jesus.
The Four Gospels. The Story of this Period. It is common to designate this period as the "Life of Christ," meaning the time he spent on earth. There is, however, no scripture life of Jesus. The gospels do not claim to present such a life. They do, however, give us a vast amount of material and though different in purpose and consequently in content, they do present the same general picture of Jesus. The matter of arranging the material in an orderly way presents much difficulty. If a topographical …
Josiah Blake Tidwell—The Bible Period by Period

The Security of Contemplatives Lies in their not Ascending to High Things if Our Lord Does not Raise Them. The Sacred Humanity must be the Road
1. There is one thing I should like to say--I think it important: and if you, my father, approve, it will serve for a lesson that possibly may be necessary; for in some books on prayer the writers say that the soul, though it cannot in its own strength attain to this state,--because it is altogether a supernatural work wrought in it by our Lord,--may nevertheless succeed, by lifting up the spirit above all created things, and raising it upwards in humility, after some years spent in a purgative life, …
Teresa of Avila—The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus

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