SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/26/2020
9:35 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 “Baptism
of the Son”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
3:13-15
Message of the verses: “13 Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming
to John, to be baptized by him. 14 But John tried to prevent Him, saying,
"I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?" 15 But
Jesus answering said to him, "Permit it at this time; for in this
way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he permitted
Him.”
It
is time for us to allow John MacArthur to tell us why Jesus was baptized. “Jesus came into the world to identify with
men; and to identify with men is to identify with sin. He could not purchase righteousness for
mankind if He did not identify with mankind’s sin. Hundreds of years before Christ’s coming
Isaiah had declared that the Messiah ‘was numbered with the transgressors, yet
He himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors’ (Isa.
53:12). Jesus’ baptism also represented
the willing identification of the sinless Son of God with the sinful people He
came to save.”
Humaningly
speaking one could say that God had a problem, and yet He worked it out because
of His great love for us. In our Sunday
school class two weeks ago I was teaching through Psalm 22, and Psalm 22:1-21
show the reader the crucifixion of Jesus Christ with the most descriptive way
found in the Word of God. I talked about
Jesus in the garden sweating great drops of blood and gave two reasons why He
did this. First Jesus had never been
separated from His Father and second Jesus was about to be made sin for
us. I believe as we look at the reason
that Jesus was baptized in order to identify with sinful men comes to fulfillment
at the cross. To think of the holiness
of God becoming sin is hard for me to imagine, and yet He did this for you and
for me because of His great love for us.
John
MacArthur writes “That was the first act of His ministry, the first step in the
redemptive plan that He came to fulfill.
He who had no sin took His place among those who had no
righteousness. He who was without sin
submitted to a baptism for sinners. In
this act the Savior of the world took His place among the sinners of the
world. The sinless Friend of sinners was
sent by the Father ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin,
He condemned sin in the flesh’ (Rom. 8:3); and He ‘made Him who knew no sin to
be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him’ (2
Cor. 5:21; cf. Isa. 53:11). There was no
other way ‘to fulfill all righteousness.’”
The
baptism of Jesus was not only a symbol of His identity with sinners but it was
also a symbol of His death and resurrection, and therefore a prefigurement of
Christian baptism. At this point I have
to say something that happened this evening.
First of all the Lord seemed to remind me that today was my 46th
spiritual birthday, and on this occasion my grandson Matthew was baptized this
evening at church. My daughter said that
this was awesome, and I said it surely was cool. Needless to say it was a blessing.
As
Jesus was going to Jerusalem for the very last time He told His disciples that “I
have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!”
(Luke 12:50). This was of course the
cross that He was speaking of. MacArthur
concludes “Jesus’ supreme identification with sinners was His taking their sin
upon Himself, which He did at Calvary.
Though John, having been given such a brief explanation, could not
possibly have comprehended the full meaning of Jesus’ baptism, he accepted his
Lord’s word and obeyed. ‘Then he permitted
Him.’”
1/26/2020 10:06 PM
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