What did Jesus mean when He said it was time to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15)?

"Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him" (ver. 13). What a cluster of wonders! Jesus coming to be baptized of John, who was avowedly preaching repentance and remission of sins. What could bring the Lord Jesus there? for He never confessed sins, and had none to confess. He challenges even His enemies to convince Him of sin. A man without sin — without the smallest particle of self in any form or degree — the lowliest and most blessed of men — the One who judged everything according to God; and yet He comes to be baptized! John at once felt it — Jesus coming to be baptized of him! To be baptized at all, but, above all, of him whose baptism was that of repentance! What is the clue to this? It is grace — the source and the channel of everything in Jesus. It was not the judgment of God that put Him there; it was not any need in Himself that brought Him there; nothing that He had to acknowledge or confess; but it was grace. For on whom in Israel did God's eye look down with compassion? Upon those that were confessing their sins. Upon such does His eye ever rest. For the next best thing to not being a sinner at all is to confess our sins. We find that this is the first great movement produced by the Holy Ghost in a sinner's soul — the feeling of his true place in the sight of God. Here was the blessed One; and though not one thing naturally could claim His presence, yet grace led Him there. And when John was earnestly hindering Him, saying, "I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" what blessed grace and truth does not our Lord's answer unfold! "Suffer it now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." It is all righteousness now to be fulfilled, and not merely the doing of the law. Now it was the righteousness of acknowledging the true state in which even the best part of Israel lay. For if there were any in Israel that showed a feeling for God, it was those who were baptized of John — those who repented in view of the kingdom of heaven. They desired God's promises, and they wished to be ready for the King. And the Lord's heart was there at once; the sympathies of His soul were with those that were humbling themselves in the sense of their sin before God.* The same principle is true of us in proportion as the Spirit of Christ is ungrieved in our souls. Even if it is a question of acknowledging anything to man, who is the person you can most open your heart to? The spiritual man — he who is walking most above sin — his is the bosom to which you can open out your sin more fully than to another. "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness." It was exactly the perfection of the holiness of Christ that could enable Him so to act: another might have feared appearances. If Christ had been merely innocent, instead of holy, should we have found Him there? Never. Holiness implies divine power against sin; innocence is merely the absence of sin. Thus we find our Lord, in the full consciousness of His own perfect holiness, coming to the baptism of John, and taking His place with those in Israel who felt aright toward God.

We may say that the Lord, in being baptized in Jordan, was identifying Himself with the true-hearted in Israel who came confessing their sins. Grace brought Him where sin had brought them, and us all. The Good Shepherd "entereth in by the door" and takes His place with the sheep He had come to save by the sacrifice of Himself. His baptism pointed to this. — [Ed.

The gracious Lord could not let His people take one step alone. He goes to be baptized by John. He, I need not say, needed no such baptism. So John receives Him: "I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?" The Lord answers, "Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him." In Him it was fulfilling righteousness. Still He takes the lowly place. You, John, have your part to do, I mine. "Us" is not, I believe, a plural of dignity, though it is not of much moment; it refers to John as to Jesus: compare chapter 17:26-27, a beautiful example of the same grace, only there He shines out as a divine Person. The Lord does not identify Himself with rebellious and perverse Israel, but with the path of God, and those who were walking in it, but He makes Himself one of them when they had taken it. The word of God entered into the ear, and led the heart of His perfect servant as fulfilling all righteousness; the blessed Son of God. He has now taken His place amongst the godly and upright though feeble sons of men, the remnant according to the election of grace in Israel. His person and personal perfectness was there, but among them according to the will of God; and He gives us the pattern and model of that into which we are introduced by redemption according to the counsels of God. When He comes up out of the water, having taken this place, He stood according to the perfect will of God as man before Him. Here heaven must respond. Lo, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Holy Ghost descending upon Him.

Matthew gives us the exercise it caused John that Jesus should come to be baptised of him. "John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to me?" It needed the "Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness" of the Lord to remove his scruples. The people had come to be baptised of John, confessing their sins; He had come fulfilling righteousness; that is, carrying out the will of God.

For the express purpose of being baptized by John, the Lord Jesus come all the way from Galilee to the Jordan. Well may we understand John's astonishment at this, for John's baptism was one of repentance, of which John felt himself in need, but not the Lord Jesus. We know "He did no sin" (1Peter 2:21-22); yet He insists to John, "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." His use of the word "us" is significant. For in being baptized He was identifying Himself with the many who were repenting of their sins; and He was virtually accepting the sentence of death for them, for He was not Himself under that sentence. In joining Himself with sinners, the claims of righteousness could only be fulfilled by His taking upon Himself the full responsibility for their sins. So that by His baptism He was pledging Himself to go to the cross, where the claims of righteousness would be perfectly fulfilled on their behalf. Marvelous condescension of grace!

Just one other point. We have that ministry closing, as it were, and Jesus Himself directly introduced to us. Hence we have Him coming down and accepting John's baptism, or rather, inviting John to baptise Him in the river Jordan. I trust most here understand what the meaning of it is, for it is very precious, because it shows out His grace. If there was a listening to the preparatory message of the servant, if there were any hearts touched and wounded with the true sense of their whereabouts, if there was any turning to God in the midst of His own people, if there was any looking at things really as they were — and John's baptism was the expression of it on the part of all that came — Jesus Himself must be there too. O what grace! He associates Himself with the returning remnant of God's people, with that which is really of God. He fulfils righteousness where they confessed sins: "thus it becometh us," we read in another gospel, "to fulfil all righteousness." That is the meaning of His baptism. He identifies Himself with the first effect of grace in His people, and He goes down and submits, for the fulfilment of righteousness, to baptism at the hands of John in the Jordan.

"Then comes Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized of him." The Lord, He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire, He who is greater than John, to whom the Baptist bowed in humility and worship, He who is the creator of all things, comes to the preacher of repentance and presents Himself to be baptized. What a scene! John stood amazed. "He forbade Him, saying, I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" In other words, I am the sinner, I need repentance, I deserve to go into that river of death, but Thou art holy -- no evil in Thee, nothing worthy of death.

Thus in the very beginning of His public ministry we have the testimony of His holiness. He is the one who alone is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; He knew no sin, who could not sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. When at last the prince of this world came he had nothing in Him. But why then should He, the holy one, this spotless, pure being, present Himself to the preacher of repentance? Why should He go into the river of death and take His place in death? Where there is no sin there need be no confession. Where there is no sin there can be no death. How could He, the King, that holy thing born of the virgin, God manifested in the flesh, ever confess sin when there was no sin? Yet He not only came to be baptized, but He was baptized. The question has had many answers. We said above that His baptism marks the beginning of His public ministry, He enters upon His work, and there can be only one meaning to His baptism, which is in fullest harmony with that work He came to do. Baptism means death and resurrection. He had no sin, but came to be the substitute for sinners, and so He takes in the very beginning their place, the sinner's place in death. He knew His work before. It is not to be understood as if now He had learned for the first time who He is and what His work is. But publicly He declares in presence of men, angels, demons, and in the presence of God that He is here to fulfill all righteousness. "Suffer it now, for it thus becometh us to fulfill all righteousness" (verse 13). No confessing or repenting on His part, He was fulfilling all righteousness. As one has said, "He saw His sheep struggling in the dark waters of the river of judgment, the meaning of the Jordan , and He must go in for their rescue. He must become identified with them, taking their place in judgment that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him, bringing in "the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ towards all and upon all those who believe" (Rom. 3:22). He knew no sin, was made sin for us, and His baptism declares this. The details of His baptism are not given. Then he suffers Him. He placed Himself into the hands of John and went into the waters of Jordan . Later He said, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am strengthened until it shall have been accomplished! The man of sorrows and acquainted with grief soon reached that place, when He went into the deep waters of suffering and death, when all the billows broke over His head. His baptism was but a type of this.

But there is more than grace in Christ their Messiah thus joining Himself with sinners confessing their sins in the waters of the Jordan. "For thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Divine justice could not otherwise be vindicated. In grace He had to take their place and to bear their judgment. To be a propitiation for the sin of the world, to meet the case of the outcast Gentile, did not necessitate His association with those who were baptised in the Jordan confessing their sins. To Israel it was necessary, for they had broken the law whose claims could not be set aside; the judgment must take its course. And if judgment upon the guilty had been the only question, there would have been no need for the advent of Christ. Judgment like the deluge upon the antediluvians would have swept them all away. But there was a prior question; there were promises which were before the law and could be no more set aside than the law. If Israel alone had to pay the penalty of the broken law, who could inherit the promises? On the other hand, if they were put in possession of the promised blessings, ignoring the law, what becomes of the judgments and righteous character of God? God provided a MAN Who could reconcile, and has reconciled the claims of promise and of law; Who even as to His human birth and genealogy was the only One Who could legally and righteously occupy the place of representative. He is the rightful heir of David's throne, and the king was the governmental link between God and Israel. He only could morally and divinely bear the penalty and judgment of God's law, but Who also could win back the forfeited promises, and establish them in a better form and on fuller ground than before appeared, or was possible. To do this was the counsel of mercy and peace; but the way of doing it was in fulfilling all righteousness, not merely submitting to the claims of a broken law, but establishing the truth of God. He who represented Israel (the remnant) went into their position, even into the Jordan, subsequently took their infirmities and bore their diseases (Matt. 8 compared with Isa. 53), and ultimately bore their stripes and their sins in His own body on the tree, that through Him all their promised blessings might be assured, while at the same time God was taking vengeance upon them for their iniquity and rebellion. To cast down after lifting up their king (as it were, God breaking the kingly link between Himself and Israel) was judicial dealing on the nation. He the rightful King was cast down, and cut off from His inheritance as Son of David (for a time); under the righteous government of God He had nothing, though the Heir of all things.

His answer to John is, "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." In His coming to it as a baptism of repentance He could not in righteousness own it for Himself; for others it obviously was the first step in righteousness that could be taken by sinners, — and for them how deeply significant! a baptism in Jordan, the river of death, a "baptism to death" therefore (Rom. 6:4), to which the sins they confessed were their just title. Death was the righteous penalty of sin, which by grace they were thus permitted to anticipate, owning their guilt in view of "remission of sins" (Luke 3:3) through Him whom John preceded. Now He was come, and owning for them the righteousness of this confession of their guilt and of the penalty under which they were, His own fulfillment of righteousness is in going into death for them as their Saviour and their sacrifice. He is moving therefore from His former position as One fulfilling righteousness for Himself; He is taking position as One fulfilling it for others. And this implies for Him death, which He speaks of afterward, as the baptism He was to be baptized with, "straitened" by His love, and in the manifestation of it, till it was accomplished (Luke 12:50).

This formal act was not undertaken, however, without remonstrance on the part of the Baptist, when Jesus "came from Nazareth of Galilee" to be baptised of him in Jordan. "I have need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to me? exclaimed the astonished prophet, seeking in his ignorant impulse to oppose the divine will by his notions of human propriety. But whatever John might think, the way of Jehovah lay through Jordan. Jehovah-Jesus was looking towards those who were poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembled at His word through His messenger (Isa. 66:2). The way of righteousness was that by which John had come to the people (Matt. 21:32). And the Lord meant by a public and unmistakable act to own that way, and, graciously answering the one who sought to hinder Him, said, "Suffer it now; for thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matt. 3:15). This was indeed a gracious reply, and in it the Lord at once maintained His authority and illustrated His grace. There was the gentle insistence that His will must be done, while at the same time with peculiar grace He yoked John with Himself in that submission which godly service ever involves. "It becomes us" are His words, for He was now stepping forth into the public eye, as the Servant of Jehovah, and this initial act was proper both to the baptiser and to the Baptised.

Now, it is exactly at this point that in the Gospel of Matthew, our Lord's ministry is said to commence. He associates Himself with this remnant in Israel, separated by John's baptism; and He Himself is baptized with John's baptism. Not, indeed, as if He needed repentance, as the reason He gives for submitting to it sufficiently shows. "He said, Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." It was as fulfilling all righteousness that Jesus was baptized. But in thus owning this ordinance of God in the hand of John, our Lord at the same time associates Himself with this movement of God's Spirit on the hearts of a remnant in Israel, and fulfilled the gracious words of the sixteenth Psalm; "Thou art my Lord; my goodness extendeth not to thee; but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent in whom is all my delight."