Normally, Baptism is the washing away of sins and the acceptance of a new religion, perhaps the new flavor of one.
So, Jesus, who is without sin, gets baptized. He didn’t need to be forgiven and was forging his own religion (Not about to change sides)
What happened there? What was the point?
I have no theological answer, but the historical one is that Mark, where the story first appears, does not consider Jesus the biological son of the deity, or without sin, and sees Jesus as sort of adopted by G-d at his baptism. At the beginning of his life, Jesus was an ordinary person. Mark has no nativity story, nor narrative like John about “In the beginning.”
Matthew is a revision and expansion of Mark (and corrects a lot of errors where Mark misquotes scripture). Matthew probably would have liked to have left out of his gospel the character of John the Baptist, but he is a well-known figure, and the story has gotten around, and it will be noted if it is missing, and possibly deter people from adopting his gospel. So he says this:
I don’t know exactly what the Greek for “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness,” is, but I assume it means something like “To lend the stamp of legitimacy to the ritual of baptism,” or “To officially make baptism a ritual of the followers of Jesus.” There’s none of this nonsense of John refusing to baptize Jesus in Mark, although John does say that Jesus is a much greater figure than he himself is.
So there you are. It meant something once, then the theology of Jesus’ biology, or ontology, changed, and the story was tweaked, but it remains a bit of a square peg in a round hole.
Actually, there’s a nod to the theological conundrum right there in the text: when Jesus seeks baptism from John John at first demurs on the grounds that it’s not fitting, but Jesus insists.
There are a couple of theological explanations offered for the baptism of Jesus.
First, simply to call attention to himself. His baptism marks the start of Jesus’ public ministry; it’s when he starts actively to reveal himself. So, if you see baptism as a sacrament and you see a sacrament as an encounter with God (and this is, pretty much, what Christians mean by “sacrament”), then in entering into baptism himself Jesus is advancing actively into an encounter with humanity; he’s brining his own divinity to humanity, rather than waiting for humanity to seek divinity.
Secondly, to call attention to baptism. Jesus public ministry starts with his own baptism; it ends with his commandment to his followers to go out and baptise.
Thirdly, Jesus is identifying himself with humanity. Although Jesus is himself sinless, the whole point of the incarnation is that he enters fully into the human condition and the human condition is that we require redemption. If we think of baptism as a washing away of sin, then the waters of the Jordan in which Jesus was baptised carried the sins of the others that John had already baptised, and Jesus symbolicly steps into these sin-laden waters, and washes himself in them. This points to his entry into, and acceptance of, our fallen, broken human nature and condition.
And there are lots of other perspectives. Some of the early church fathers assert that, in being baptised in the waters Jesus sanctified the waters themselves, and this points to his mission to redeem not merely humanity but the whole created order, animate and inanimate.
(Just to be clear, I’m not saying that all or any of this was going through the mind of Jesus when he was baptised. I’m not even asserting that he was baptised. I’m simply pointing, in the spirit of the OP, to theological reflections on this significance of this story.
I have a theological answer.
Well, not me, exactly. St. Thomas Aquinas explained it, but I will steal his reasoning, file off the serial numbers, and present it here as if I thought of it:
Baptism as we know it is a sacrament, an outward sign instituted by Christ that confers grace. So the baptism of St. John the Baptist was only symbolic. It represented, visually, a commitment to repentance and the washing away of sin. But it did not actually leave an indelible mark on the soul.
At the moment Jesus received the baptism at John’s hands He was instituting the sacrament. He was, in other words, showing the way. It’s true that He had no need for forgiveness of sins, but He is taking the place of all sinners – just as He would again on the Cross. Indeed, when Jesus approaches, John demurs, recognizing that Jesus is the one of whom he spoke, the one that would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. But Jesus insists, telling John, “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
So Jesus was showing us the form and manner of the first and most critical of the seven sacraments He would leave us, the one that was the gateway to the others and to eternal life.
I always knew Kosher pickles were Godly!
He’s pointing the way to others.
At the Last Supper, he said to eat and drink, partaking of his flesh and his blood, in his memory. He wasn’t partaking of his own flesh and blood at that dinner; he was pointing to what he wanted them to do, later, on their own.
The Bible itself pretty much tells us:
So first we have Jesus himself who says it is to “fulfill all righteousness,” indicating that being baptized is something those who wish to follow the path of righteousness need to do.
Then you have the what John said, which shows a sort of handing of the torch. John, someone who is already well known in his ministry, verifies Jesus, and says he is not only okay but better than him.
Then you have what God says, which establishes that all of this is from God. And that he is pleased–which means that what Jesus did was righteous. Righteousness is living in a way that is pleasing to God.
There’s also an argument that the Gospels were trying to put down a competing Johannine cult, and so having John say, “I’m not even fit to wash this man’s feet” was a way of claiming superiority for the cult of Jesus.
I think Bricker pretty much nailed it. The whole idea was to institute the sacrament. But did John fully understand that purpose? He baptized others before Jesus, but why?
John didn’t invent baptism. It was already in use by Jews as a purification ritual. Among other things, ritual washing was used to purify things (and people) who had been defiled, and a ritual bath was part of the process by which gentiles embraced Judaism. (Both of these things are still true, SFAIK.) The point about John’s baptism was that he was baptising people who wer already Jewish; who had always been Jewish. He was telling them that they, too, needed to purify themselves - needed to repent - in preparation for the coming of the Messiah.
I hesitate to quarrel with Bricker, but I think that the mainstream Catholic view is that John’s baptism - including but not limited to John’s baptism of Jesus - was not sacramental baptism, and the baptism of Jesus by John does not represent the institution of the sacrament. John’s baptism was a baptism that signified repentance, not a baptism that effected salvation or redemption. And the institution of sacramental baptism is usuall identified as Jesus’s command to baptise, not Jesus’s acceptance of baptism.
Here we don’t disagree.
Here we might.
It’s true that there is disagreement on this point. I drew my answer from Summa Theologica III:66:2: “Whether Baptism was instituted after Christ’s Passion?” In answer:
So the tl;dr summary is: the sacrament was instituted in the Jordan but made obligatory after His death and resurrection.
That point from the Summa Theologica cites Matthew 28:19, with the conclusion that because Jesus is saying this then (after the Passion) it’s something which only applied from that point. But Matthew 28:18 (NIV) says, “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”. If we apply that same meaning to that previous line, wouldn’t the implication by the same standard be that Jesus had prior to the Passion no such authority?
Once again The Doctor (of the Church, not the one Of The Tardis) has got you covered; he points out that there is manifest agreement that Christ instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, and this is undeniably before His Passion.
I’m going to have to apologise, since I’m sure this answers my point if you have a good working knowledge of Catholic or Christian theology, but I don’t. Could you expand on that for me?
If your (or Aquinas’) point is that Jesus instituted a sacrament prior to the Passion, therefore he must have had “all authority in heaven and on earth” at that point, I’m not sure I would agree that follows, nor that that solves the problem with taking Jesus’ post-Passion words created by that reading.
The specific objection being rebutted was: Jesus did not institute the sacrament of baptism in the Jordan, because He did not yet have the authority to institute sacraments. The rebuttal is: Oh yeah? How about the Eucharist?
That means we’ve got two issues. If my reading, based on Aquinas’ reading, of Matthew 28 is correct, then Jesus did not yet have “full authority”. There’s a few potential responses to that. Perhaps Jesus *didn’t *institute the Eucharist as a sacrament at the Last Supper. Perhaps, prior to the Passion, Jesus had limited authority at times, something maybe along the lines of Papal infallibility vs. stuff the Pope just says. Perhaps it was a matter of specific revelation.
The other issue then is if my reading is wrong, because if it is wrong, then that suggests that Aquinas’ reading of that next line in Matthew is wrong, too. If Jesus doesn’t mean when he says he has “full authority” that he has full authority now that the Passion has occurred, then why should we take his next line, in which he declares that the apostles should go out and baptize, as meaning that now that the Passion has occurred baptism is made obligatory?
Why not simply take it as, “Now it’s obligatory because now is when I’m telling you to do it?”
That’s option one. In which case, Jesus is also saying “Now I have full authority in heaven and on Earth because now is when I’m telling you I do.”
That whole section, to save people going to find it;
[QUOTE=Matthew 28:16-20 NIV]
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
[/QUOTE]
From the Baptist perspective, baptism is not required to achieve salvation (become a follower of Christ). We mainly get this from the scripture in Luke 23:39-43 with the exchange of the criminal crucified beside Him that asked Jesus to remember him when He (Jesus) entered His kingdom. And Jesus’ response of “Today you will be with me in paradise”. Since it would have been impossible for Jesus to baptize the criminal, we then believe baptism is not required, but is an outward sign of an inward change.
The significance for us in the Baptist church (other than why we believe baptism should be immersion (I.E. if it was the method used by Jesus, then that is the pattern we should follow)), is that Jesus was modeling a behavior that He knew He would ask followers to do later.
It was also the visual start of his public ministry, but the main thing we get from it is that He Himself did what He was going to ask others to do.
Much the same as He modeled prayer, fasting, the Lord’s Supper, giving, loving, ministry, etc. for His disciples and for followers throughout time.
Given that, as you say, the criminal asked Jesus to remember him, wouldn’t an at least equally valid interpretation of Jesus’ response be that he’s saying, “Yes, I’ll remember you.”? I’ve certainly seen people use “I’ll be with you/they’ll be with us” to mean not a literal same location but also a metaphorical “I’ll/they’ll be in our hearts/memories”, meaning.