Intro: This passage records the first appearance of the Lord Jesus in the Word of God since He was seen in the Temple at the age of twelve. All we know of the next eighteen years of His life are summed up by Luke like this: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man,” Luke 2:52. Those silent years of the life of Jesus were years of mental, physical and spiritual preparation for His work as Messiah and Savior.

We are told in verse 8 that Jesus came “in those days”. Why did Jesus choose this time to make His identity and mission known to men? He came now because the time was right. John the Baptist had blazed the trail as the forerunner of the Lord. John the Baptist’s crowds were large and his ministry was at its very apex. Jesus came at this time because John had completed his work and the time for him to decrease had come. Jesus came because it was God’s appointed time for Him to be revealed.

The next phrase says, “Jesus came”. When Jesus Christ made His public appearance there on the banks of the Jordan River, it was a moment that changed the world forever. Ever since Adam sinned in Eden, mankind had been looking for a Redeemer Who would come and reconcile men to God. Since the dawn of time, fallen humanity had waited for the appearance of a perfect man who would challenge sin and Satan to deliver the human soul from the bondage of evil. Every man who had ever lived up to that day was just another fallen soul. Humanity had never been able to produce one who could deliver it from its lost condition. Many thousands of suns had risen and set on a world held fast in the grip of crushing iniquity. But, the day Jesus came, everything changed! When Jesus shows up, nothing remains as it was. (Ill. Just take a few minutes to ask Zacchaeus; the Gaderene Demoniac; the woman with the issue of blood; the three Hebrew boys; Daniel; Saul of Tarsus; Simon Peter; and any of the lives He impacted in the Word of God.)

Today we want to look at these verses and consider the events surrounding the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are some great blessings in these verses if we will just take the time to glean them. There are some questions that will be answered for us as well. Let’s take a few minutes today to look in on The Baptism Of The Servant and find some help for our souls in these verses. I think there is a word here for every person in this room, if you will receive it today. The Baptism Of The Servant.

I. v. 9 THE APPEARING OF THE SON

(Ill. As I have already mentioned, this is the first recorded appearance of the Lord Jesus in eighteen years. When He appears, He comes to John the Baptist to be baptized by John. Now, verse 4 tells us that John’s baptism was “the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins”. In other words, the people who came to John were publicly confessing their sins and submitting to baptism as a symbol of their changed lives.

So, why was Jesus baptized? When He came to John for Baptism, Matthew tells us that John at first refused to baptize the Lord, Matt. 3:13–15. You see, John and Jesus were cousins. John probably knew the kind of life Jesus lived. John knew that if anyone was holy it was the Lord. But, Jesus said, “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,” Matt. 3:15. The phrase “to fulfil all righteousness” means that Jesus was baptized “to fulfil every ordinance of God”. In other words, God was working through John the Baptist in those days and Jesus wanted to identify Himself with everything that was of the Father.

Jesus did not come to John to confess His sins and to be baptized to signify His repentance. Jesus had no sin that needed to be repented of, 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:22. Jesus was baptized for several reasons. Allow me to point out just a few of them.)

A. He Appeared In Declaration—When Jesus presented Himself for baptism, He was making a public declaration of some important facts.

1. Jesus was baptized to identify with John the Baptist’s ministry. Look again at what John had been preaching, v. 7–8. Jesus came to John to place His divine seal on what John had been saying. John had been preaching to the people this message: “The Kingdom of God is at hand! The Messiah is coming”. Jesus came to be baptized of John to say to John and the people, “I am the Messiah!”

2. Jesus was baptized so that John would know that Jesus was the Messiah, John 1:33; Mark 1:10.

3. He was baptized to signal the beginning of His public ministry.

So, the baptism of the Lord Jesus was a public declaration that he was, in fact, the promised Messiah; that He was the Savior sent to reconcile God and man. (Ill. He is still the only way to God—John 14:6; Acts 4:12.)

B. He Appeared In Dedication—In His baptism, Jesus was willingly and publicly accepting the mission He had been given by His Father. Jesus had entered this world for the sole purpose of carrying out God’s plan to redeem sinners. Jesus came to offer the Kingdom to Israel and to offer His life on the cross as a ransom for sin, Mark 10:45; John 18:37. Israel rejected the offer of their Messiah, but God accepted the offering Christ made on the cross, 1 John 2:2; Isa. 53:11. So, Jesus left the dark shadows of obscurity to embark on His public mission to “seek and to save that which was lost”, Luke 19:10.

C. He Appeared In Demonstration—The baptism of Jesus also served to allow Him to identify with the very people He came to save. Every one of those people who came to John for baptism was looking for a new life. They were looking for forgiveness of their sins and for a relationship with God. Jesus Christ came to give those very things to lost people. He was born in a human body so that He might live among us and die for us. He was baptized to identify with us. His baptism identified Him with the fallen race He came to save.

His baptism also pictured His Own death and resurrection. Just as the waters of muddy Jordan flowed down to their burial in the Dead Sea, the days of Jesus’ life were leading Him toward a date with death. When Jesus submitted to John’s baptism, He was picturing what would happen to Him some day. He would enter death on the cross and He would rise again in the resurrection. He knew that He was heading toward a baptism called death, Luke 12:50. Thus, Jesus Christ was demonstrating His solemn resolve to lay down His life on the cross for our sins.

So for John to be doing what he was doing was unique. But beyond that, for John to baptize Jesus was strange. It was even offensive. It was even embarrassing to believers, even after the early writing of the New Testament, people were confused about why John the Baptist would baptize Jesus because John’s was a baptism of repentance.… repentance. It was embarrassing to some of the early Christians to think of the fact that Jesus might need to repent, that Jesus might have to confess some sins, that Jesus needed somehow to get his life right so he didn’t fall under divine judgment.