Jesus’ Baptism & The Eyes Of Faith - Mark 1:7-9 Series

Things like this are strong evidence of the truthfulness of the gospel writers. Because no one would make this up. No one would invent a perfect, sinless God-man and then have him undergo a baptism of repentance. There are some things about what Jesus said and did that are very hard to explain, but the writers of Scripture reported them anyway, which shows that these were honest men telling the truth about what happened.

So what is the explanation? Theologians have suggested various theories. The one that has always made the most sense to me is that Jesus was identifying with sinners, which would be a picture of the work he would eventually carry out. And I still think there’s some truth to that.

Another explanation is that Jesus did it as the one perfect baptism on behalf of all the people. Everyone is committing to be obedient to God, but only Jesus does so perfectly, and so he does that as the one true Israelite – the representative of God’s people, on behalf of the whole nation to consecrate the people to God, paving the way for God to come in restoration. Back in the time of Moses we read in Exodus 19 that God would not come down from heaven and visit the Israelites until all the people were consecrated. And like Moses in Exodus 32:23 Jesus does not separate himself from the sin of people. He identifies with it even though he himself wasn’t guilty of it.

I think there may be some validity to that as well. But I think there’s more to it than that. I told you last week that the Jews would baptize Gentiles who wanted to convert to Judaism. They did that, not only to symbolize cleansing, but also as a public statement that that person is now identifying with a new people. He’s saying, “This is who I am now. This community now defines me. This is what I am - a member of this group.”

We tend to miss that aspect of baptism because in our day baptism has become so individualized. We’ve lost the communal aspect. Now it’s just all about me and forgiveness of my sins and my relationship with God. But it’s important to realize - your baptism is bigger than you. Your baptism is not just about you. It’s about the whole community. Now, the individual aspect is still important. But there’s also a very important community aspect.

And if we understand that, that might help us make better sense of why Jesus was baptized by John. He wasn’t baptized because he had to repent of anything or he was having any of his sins forgiven, because he never sinned. It wasn’t any kind of turning point in his relationship with God or conversion of any kind. None of that would make sense, but it makes perfect sense to think of Jesus as joining the community of people defined by the preaching of John the Baptist. Someone might ask back then, “Who are you? What community do you belong to? Are you part of the Jewish religious establishment? Or do you side with all those John the Baptist types? Are you one of those people who buys into all that preaching of John the Baptist?” And by being baptized, Jesus was saying, “Yes.” He’s identifying with that community. “Yes, I’m a John the Baptistite. I believe in all that stuff he preaches. I’m in that group. When John the Baptist says you need to repent in order to come to God, even if you’re a Jew, I’m totally on board with that. When John the Baptist rails against the current religious leadership of Judaism, I totally agree. All that stuff John preaches about the one who will come after him, the mightier one who will dispense the Holy Spirit, I’m on board with all that. The whole community of people that bought into John the Baptist preaching – that’s the community I’m identifying with.”