WHY WAS JESUS BAPTIZED?

This question came back to me this morning. Thank you Kat for looking past what was written and seeking to know more. I encourage you all to do the same. It is in this that we grow and learn. I would like to mention here that this set of articles on How to Study, was for the purpose of getting you to understand that study is important to knowing God, as He would have you know Him. Not just the study of baptism but of anything that stirs you to want a deeper understanding, or to know more. Here is the answer.

Matthew 3:13-15 13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. 14 And John tried to prevent Him saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?” 15 But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for this it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him.

Well there is your answer. Jesus said for it is fitting for this to happen now, to fulfill all righteousness. To fulfill all righteousness, to better understand this we must understand righteousness.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

1 Corinthians 1:30 By His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.

Romans 9:30 “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.

Okay that is good, but it does not explain what righteousness is. We understand righteousness to mean uprightness-an adherence or conformity to an established norm. In the Bible the use of the word righteousness is rooted in covenants and relationships. It is the fulfillment of the terms of a covenant between God and humanity or between humans in the full range of human relationships.

God established with His chosen people of Israel a covenant. His righteousness is what He does in fulfillment of the terms of that covenant.2 Chronicles 12:6 So they leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, “The Lord is righteousness.”

Psalms 7:9 Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end. But establish the just; For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds,

Jeremiah 9:24 But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the Lord, exercising loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.

Daniel 9:4 “Therefore the Lord has kept the disaster mind, and brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice.

God’s judgments are consistently redemptive in nature; these judgments protected, delivered, and restored Israel.

Isaiah 11:4-5 4 But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, And decide with equity for the meek of the earth; He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.5 Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins, And faithfulness the belt of His waist.

Because Israel had entered into a covenant relationship with God, they had the responsibility of fulfilling the terms of the covenant. By God establishing a covenant with them He bestowed salvation on Israel. Exodus 19:1-5 God has brought the children of Israel out of Egypt to the wilderness of Sinai, and He tells them in verse 5 “. if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant..”

Law was given to provide guidelines to keep its part of the covenant. Leviticus 16:1, Psalms 40:1. This law was to establish a program for the maintenance of a healthy relationship between Israel and God. Human righteousness was understood to be adherence to the law of God. God did not leave the Israelites with the law of performing the law perfectly. The law God gave provision for atonement through repentance and appropriate acts of contrition.

New Testament Greek philosophy understood righteousness to be one of the cardinal virtues. New Testament authors show that they understood the words in terms of Old Testament relations. Human righteousness in the New Testament is absolute faith in and commitment to God.Matthew 3:15 “. to fulfill all righteousness.”

Romans 4:5 …his faith is accounted for righteousness.

1 Peter 2:24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness-by whose stripes you were healed.

James 2:23 the one who in faith gives oneself to the doing of God’s will is righteous, doing righteousness, and reckoned righteous by God.

Philippians 3:9 “May be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. Acts 17:28 For in Him we live and move and have our being; as even some of your [own] poets have said, For we are also His off spring.

Romans 6:8 {read also 9-11] Now if we have died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him.

Why did Jesus be baptized can be summed up to me in this one verse. Romans 8:3,4 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did; sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

God Bless,
rECj