Sermon Baptism Of Jesus

The Beloved Son Wades In: What the Baptism of Jesus Reveals About Grace, Identity, and the God Who Draws Near

Matthew 3:13-17 (Csb)

Introduction

There is a moment in Matthew's Gospel that stops you in your tracks if you read it carefully. Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Son of God, the one who has no sin, no guilt, and no need of cleansing, walks to the edge of the Jordan River and asks to be baptized. John the Baptist, who has been preaching repentance to crowds of ordinary sinners, looks at the one standing before him and immediately protests. "I need to be baptized by you," John says, "and yet you come to me?" It is one of the most striking moments of role reversal in all of Scripture, and it deserves our careful, reverent attention.

This morning we are studying Matthew 3:13-17 together, and the question we want to answer is not simply what happened at the Jordan River. The deeper question is what it means. Why did the sinless Son of God submit to a baptism of repentance? What was accomplished in that moment? And what does it reveal to us about the God we worship and the salvation we have received?

Part One: The Descent Of The Son

Matthew tells us that Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. John's ministry had been a ministry of preparation. He called people to confess their sins and be baptized as an outward sign of inward repentance, a turning of the heart toward the coming kingdom. The crowds who waded into that river were sinners who knew they needed to be made right with God.

Jesus was not among that number in the same way. He had no sin to confess and no guilt to wash away. So when John resists and says, "I need to be baptized by you," he is not being dramatic. He is being theologically precise. He recognizes that the one standing before him is categorically different from everyone else who had come to the river.

But Jesus does not turn back. He says, "Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness." That phrase, fulfill all righteousness, is doing enormous work in Matthew's Gospel. Matthew uses the language of fulfillment throughout his account to show that Jesus is bringing to completion everything that God had promised and required. When Jesus says he must fulfill all righteousness, he is saying that his baptism is not an accident or a formality. It is an act of obedience and identification that belongs to his mission.

Here is the heart of it: Jesus did not enter the Jordan because he needed repentance. He entered the Jordan because we did. His baptism was an act of solidarity with the sinful humanity he came to save. He was not confessing his own sin. He was stepping into the place where sinners stand, taking up his position among them, beginning the great work of identification that would reach its fullest expression on the cross. The one who knew no sin would be made sin for us, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21. The Jordan was the beginning of that downward movement of grace.

Part Two: The Opening Of Heaven

Matthew tells us that after Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water, and the heavens suddenly opened. This is not incidental language. In the Old Testament, a closed heaven was a picture of separation between God and his people, of divine silence and distance. When Matthew says the heavens opened, he is announcing that the long silence is over. The age of fulfillment has arrived.

And then two things happen simultaneously. The Spirit of God descends like a dove and comes to rest on Jesus. And a voice from heaven speaks: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased."

Notice that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all present and active in this single moment. The Son stands in the water. The Spirit descends upon him. The Father speaks over him. This is one of the clearest Trinitarian moments in all of Scripture, and it is not an accident that it occurs at the very beginning of Jesus's public ministry. God is telling us something about who Jesus is before he preaches a single sermon or performs a single miracle.

The Father's declaration is drawn from two streams of the Old Testament. The phrase "my beloved Son" echoes Psalm 2, a royal psalm about the anointed king of Israel. The phrase "with whom I am well-pleased" echoes Isaiah 42, the first of the Servant Songs, which describes the one who will bring justice to the nations and bear the sins of the people. In one sentence, the Father identifies Jesus as both the royal Son and the suffering Servant. He is the King who will reign and the Servant who will suffer. Both truths belong to his identity, and both are announced here at the Jordan.

Part Three: What This Means For Us

So what does this passage mean for those of us who follow Jesus today?

First, it means that Jesus is not a distant savior. He did not stand on the bank and call sinners to him from a safe distance. He waded in. He stood where we stand. He took on the full weight of human need and human frailty, not because he was weak, but because he was willing. The incarnation and the baptism together tell us that God in Christ has drawn near to us in the most personal and costly way imaginable.

Second, it means that our identity in Christ is grounded in his identity, not our own performance. The Father's words over Jesus, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased," are words spoken before Jesus has done anything in his public ministry. His belovedness is not earned. It is declared. And when we come to faith in Christ, when we are united to him through repentance and trust, we are brought into that same relationship. Paul writes in Galatians 3:26-27 that we are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, and that those who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Our standing before the Father is rooted in the Son's standing, not in our own merit.

Third, this passage calls us to take baptism seriously as a public declaration of what is already true in the heart. In Baptist life, we practice believer's baptism by immersion as an ordinance of the church, a visible, outward sign that proclaims an inward reality. Baptism does not save us. Jesus saves us. But baptism is the God-appointed way for a believer to say publicly, "I belong to Christ. I have died with him and been raised with him. I am not ashamed of the gospel." When someone goes under the water and comes back up, the congregation is watching a sermon preached without words.

Conclusion

The baptism of Jesus is not a footnote in the Gospels. It is a declaration. It tells us that the Son of God entered our world fully, stood in our place willingly, was anointed by the Spirit powerfully, and was affirmed by the Father openly. It is the beginning of the great rescue mission that ends at the cross and the empty tomb.

If you have trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and have not yet been baptized, let this passage stir your heart. Not out of guilt, but out of joy. Baptism is your opportunity to say with your whole body what your heart already believes. Speak with a pastor. Ask your questions. Let the church walk with you.

And for all of us, let the Jordan River remind us of this: the God we serve is not far off. He waded in. He drew near. And in Christ, he draws near still.

Sources Consulted

D. A. Carson. "Matthew." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 8. Zondervan, 1984.

R. T. France. The Gospel of Matthew. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 2007.

Craig L. Blomberg. Matthew. New American Commentary, vol. 22. Broadman and Holman, 1992.

John Nolland. The Gospel of Matthew. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 2005.

Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, eds. Believer's Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ. Broadman and Holman, 2006.