Put Your Faith In God's "Own Dear Son"

When John the Baptist baptized Jesus, in fulfillment of all that God wanted them to do, the heavens opened up and God the Holy Spirit descended to rest upon God the Son. At that moment God the Father spoke,

"This is my own dear Son, and I am pleased with him."

In His baptism the Lord Jesus prefigured His death and resurrection, getting to the very heart of what Christianity is all about.

As God teaches in His word,

Don't you know that all who share in Christ Jesus by being baptized also share in his death? When we were baptized, we died and were buried with Christ. We were baptized, so that we would live a new life, as Christ was raised to life by the glory of God the Father.

If we shared in Jesus' death by being baptized, we will be raised to life with him. We know that the persons we used to be were nailed to the cross with Jesus. This was done, so that our sinful bodies would no longer be the slaves of sin. We know that sin doesn't have power over dead people.

As surely as we died with Christ, we believe we will also live with him. We know that death no longer has any power over Christ. He died and was raised to life, never again to die. When Christ died, he died for sin once and for all. But now he is alive, and he lives only for God. In the same way, you must think of yourselves as dead to the power of sin. But Christ Jesus has given life to you, and you live for God.

[Romans 6:3-11, Contemporary English Version]

The Lord Jesus identified with you as a sinner, now you identify with Him.
When you come to Jesus in faith and receive Him as your Savior and Lord into your life, then you also take on a new identity, as a saved person, a saved sinner, someone who has been made new. You die to your old life, your spiritually dead existence. And you are raised up to a new life filled with God’s Holy Spirit. you are born again.

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John the Baptist’s Witness: “Jesus is Christ”

John was by no means a timid man. He was confident in his calling, confident in his message, confident in his methods. But when Jesus came up to be baptized, John suddenly got weak knees:

John kept objecting and said, "I ought to be baptized by you. Why have you come to me?"

Jesus replied

"For now this is how it should be, because we must do all that God wants us to do."

There are several reasons why Jesus humbled Himself in the Jordan. By having John baptize Him, Jesus:

1) Gave approval to John’s preaching and work.

2) Fulfilled all righteousness.

"...we must do all that God wants us to do."

If Jesus was going to bring righteousness to sinners, then He needed to be identified with sinners. Isaiah had prophesied that Messiah would be numbered among the transgressors. Sin was going to be on Jesus. In baptism Jesus identified Himself completely with sinful humankind, even though He Himself had no sin to repent of.

3) Prophesied the cross and His resurrection. Baptism symbolizes death. Whereas in one sense, as John baptized people, he was symbolically cleaning them from all their sin, he was also in a sense symbolically lowering them down into their grave, showing them how they were dying to their old life of sin; and he was raising them up again to a brand new life as a cleansed person, reborn to an eternal life of purity with God. Jesus added reality to this symbolism since He would literally die and literally rise up from the dead, leading the way for everyone else who believes in Him to also literally rise up from the dead on the last day.

4) Was set apart as the ultimate high priest; this was His anointing.

...as soon as he came out of the water, the sky opened, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down on him like a dove.

Every time before, priests, kings and prophets had been anointed with oil, to represent the Holy Spirit. But Jesus was anointed with the Spirit Himself.

5) Jesus’ life paralleled the history of God’s people. Just as the Hebrews had passed first through the waters of the Red Sea, and into the desert for forty years’ of testing, so now Jesus would pass through the Jordan’s waters and into the desert for forty days’ of testing

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