What did John say when he baptized Jesus?

"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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

How admirable at this moment is the great prophet, John the Baptist! He stoops lower than the latchet of the sandals of Christ. (Matt. 3:11; John 1:27.) He declares that he has need to be baptized of Him. (Matt. 3:14.) Thus humbling himself, he exalts, on the one hand, the personal dignity of his Lord; and owns, on the other, in the presence of such perfection, his own condition as a sinner. But how much more worthy of admiration still is the Saviour Himself! He, the most high, humbles Himself still lower than John, who stooped to the sandals of His feet. "Suffer it to be so now," He says; and taking His place in grace at the baptism of John with those who repent, He finds His delight in broken and contrite hearts, and associates Himself with the "excellent" of the earth. Then, not content with abasing Himself, He adds, "It becomes us to fulfil all righteousness," raising John to a level with Himself, and making him a companion in the accomplishment of the will of God. "The heavens were opened" upon and occupied with such perfection, and our hearts too may well be opened to contemplate it.

In His interview with John Baptist, what was John's place? His thoughts are necessarily in disorder, however gracious, "I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" If he was to take the place of baptizer, what was his personal relationship to the Lord, or rather actual condition before Him? His relationship, as of God, was baptizer, but how could he take it when what he was, was brought into question by the presence of the Lord? But Christ's is perfect, "suffer it to be so now"; He can take this place in grace, according to God's ways with the people, but His part was perfect in it, and He gives it in service to John, for "thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," for He was following the path of God in perfectness, and John was to fulfil his service in it.

59 Then Jesus comes to John to be baptised. John forbad Him, because he owned the dignity of His Person. "I have need to be baptised of thee; and comest thou to me?" Jesus then "said unto him, Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Whom do I find here? It is the Lord Jesus and His Person owned; but, in spite of that, His will is to take His place with the least of the saints. "Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Who are they, these we? It is John and Himself. Where does He place Himself? He places Himself there, in connection with the first movement of His Spirit in the heart. I place Myself with those who repent, said Jesus. There are some who come to be baptised; I also, I come to be baptised. As soon as there is a movement of repentance in the heart of the sinner - a response to the testimony rendered by the word - Jesus takes His place there with that heart. It is not only that He manifests as an object that which, by faith, becomes the crucifying of the flesh, but He goes with the heart also, and the poor heart sees all that; and what a consolation for us! The one in whom the fulness of the Father was manifested is there, and it is the Son Himself. If a soul is broken down - well! Jesus is with it. If it is in fear, because already "the axe is laid unto the root of the trees," He is there to encourage it and to shew unto it His grace. He takes His place with His people, and thus we see the perfect goodness of God. It was He Himself who produced this movement of repentance in that heart, and He takes His place with that soul; Jesus is there. If He is to us the most high God, the One who manifests all this light, He is there also as man, meeting the least of our feelings. He is with us, believers, in all our misery and in all our circumstances.

Well might John the Baptist be surprised when the Son came to him to be baptised. "John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to me?" Yes, it was consistent for Him in deepest humiliation to identify Himself with the godly baptised remnant of Israel. We must notice, that this was John's and not Christian baptism. "And Jesus answering, said to him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him."

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!