God Sends His Son....

As we all know, both gardeners and auto mechanics get dirty while working. If a gardener refused to dig a hole to prepare the soil for planting or an auto mechanic refused to touch motor oil just to remain clean, his work would be worthless. In a spiritual sense, Jesus’ ministry and work while on Earth would also have been worthless if He had never done the spiritual dirty work of embracing sinners through baptism or identifying with our struggle through His temptation. Thankfully, as we learn in Mark 1:9-13, Jesus did both. Furthermore, through both of these events, Jesus both establishes and demonstrates his identity. The first way that His identity is established is….

With the sinner through Baptism

In Mark 1:4-5, we learn that John the Baptist taught his followers that the external evidence of an individual who repents was baptism; thus, all those baptized by John had previously repented. That is, all except one, Jesus of Nazareth (Mark 1:9). Furthermore, we learn that this same Jesus of Nazareth is the one who actually takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29) and baptizes all believers with the Spirit (John 1:33). So, why does the One who baptizes with the Spirit humble himself to receive John’s baptism? Because, in submitting to John’s baptism, Jesus both acknowledges God’s judgment upon and identifies with God’s sinful people. As stated by the great theologian John Piper, “When Jesus was baptized with the repenting people…it was as if the commander-in-chief came to the front lines and jumped into the trenches with us”.   

In addition to the previously stated distinctions between Jesus and all others that John baptized, we must also recognize that the Baptism itself had distinct and supernatural characteristics.  One  such characteristic is that as Jesus came up out of the water, He saw the heavens “torn open” (Mark 1:10). This fulfills the following words written by the Old Testament prophet Isaiah: “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence” (Isaiah 64:1). Friend, God’s silence was not replaced by words; it was replaced by the Incarnate word (Jesus Christ) that became Flesh! A second supernatural characteristic of Jesus’ baptism was that the Spirit descended like a dove (Mark 1:10). For Jews, the dove was the bird of sacrifice. At that very moment, as previously prophesized in Isaiah 42:1, the Holy Spirit empowered Christ to fulfill His forthcoming and ultimate sacrifice so that those who believe will have eternal life!  

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