*Disclaimer: The conclusions I’m discussing below are all based on my own opinions through years of biblical, theological, and seminary training.

Last weekend I volunteered at a local churches teen revival camping trip and during this camping trip the topic of Baptism was brought up throughout a number of sessions. When I returned home to my house I was hit on my forehead with a series of thoughts that intertwined Baptism with Crucifixion and it all started with Matthew 3:15.

In this passage, Jesus goes to his cousin John the Baptist and asks him to baptize him. John is reluctant but Jesus persuades him saying “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.” But what does this mean? And how does it relate to crucifixion like I stated earlier. Well……… to start off, Jesus is the propitiation or a better way to put it the ultimate sacrifice. A regular human being like myself is imperfect and born into sin due to the nature of my flesh. There is nothing I can do in my own power to save myself, and It makes sense that the only resource that could reconcile and make atonement for God on my behalf would have to be, as the Greeks say, “Homoousios” or of that same substance. That substance is Jesus Christ because he IS God. Jesus’s death on the cross freed us from the law and consequences of sin and death by standing in our place.

“He who knew no sin, became sin, so I could become the righteousness of God” – 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Jesus was not guilty, but stood in place of the guilty, he was sinless but stood in the place of the sinful, and was treated as sin itself. This is the comparison with baptism. The moment I recognize and confess Jesus over my life I go through an internal spiritual baptism and instantly am given THE Holy Spirit. This baptism of the spirit grants us our holy character that we receive from Christ as who we once were is washed away and we are a new creature (born again) and now have to learn how to walk out what accepting Jesus instantly made us. He, in that baptism pool sat in the seat of the angry, the harsh, the violent, the imperfect which is why John wanted to be baptized instead. But it was Gods will for Jesus to do so, so that we can recieve that righteousness by faith in him when we are baptized.

Crucifixion paid the ransom because he took our place, baptism grants us his righteousness because he took our place. The similarity I believe God was showing me is the seat and who was sitting in it. It HAD to be Jesus, and it couldn’t have been anybody else because the process would have been flawed or incomplete. Imagine if John got his wish and was baptized to fulfill all righteousness. Because John is imperfect you would literally have to go under the water every single time you did something wrong or you would think that just the outward action of baptism guarantees you righteousness and heaven, without looking inward. Imagine if Moses died for my sins. Then you would have any and everybody attempting to obey all 613 Jewish Old Testament laws and literally nobody would reach heaven or be righteous because once you break one law, according to those laws, you break them all. It HAD to be Jesus.

Amen.