Matthew Series Week 2 - Legally Justified
Matthew 3:13-17
This past Sunday, Nick preached our second week in our Matthew Series over Matthew 3:13-17 on the Baptism of Jesus and the implications that has on us as Christ-Followers. To look at Jesus’ Baptism we need to remember the context of the whole Bible. All the Bible is the story of God’s plan of redemption through Jesus. The Old Testament points forward to Jesus as the law and the prophets pointed to the need of a Messiah and looked forward in hope of his coming; and the New Testament points to the fact that He came, defeated sin and death on the cross, and will come again to make all things new.
Up to this point in the Bible it had been over 400 years since there had been a prophet calling for repentance, so John would really be the last of the Old Testament prophets who was chosen to call for repentance up until the point the Messiah was there. Jesus then requested to be baptized which he said was to “fulfill all righteousness” in v 15. His baptism is significant because it starts His public ministry, and Jesus' baptism was an intentional image of Him fulfilling the Justice of God on our behalf. He was baptized to symbolically represent what He would do on the cross for us, and we follow Him in baptism to align ourselves with that and to symbolically show we’re being raised out of the water to new spiritual life with Christ.
But why do we need new life? God is holy, which means “perfect” or “set apart”, and we are not, but are marred and stained by sin: Rom 3:23 “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Rom. 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death…” and requires a blood payment to fulfill God’s justice, Heb. 9:22 'Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.’
This requirement, in no small part, is how the Old Testament was pointing forward to the coming Messiah who would have the power to redeem and take away the sins of the world. Even John the Baptist connected these dots. In the account of Jesus’ baptism in the Gospel of John, John the Baptist proclaimed this truth in John 1:29
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
Jesus being the spotless Lamb of God would lay his life down for our sins, because God is just and payment for sin has to be made, but God in Christ is also the Justifier, taking on the guilt and punishment for us.
'But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.' Romans 3:21-26
The Bottom Line from Nick’s sermon on Sunday was this: Jesus’ baptism was an intentional image of Him fulfilling the justice of God on our behalf.
This is the glorious hope that is found in baptism, aligning us with Jesus and what He accomplished on our behalf, and proclaiming the new life found only in Him. 'Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.' Romans 6:3-4 It is our prayer that you would know the hope of new life found in Christ represented by baptism, and it is our goal as a church to proclaim this Good News so that others would hear it and pass from death to life as well.
Check out this video for more context on where we’re at and where we’re going in our current series.