Fulfilling All Righteousness
Baptism
works the forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives
eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God
declare.
This is a lot of power to attribute to Baptism. But we have the words and promises of God to
prove our claim. We have these words of Jesus: He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who does not
believe shall be condemned. Baptism
forgives sins. Baptism gives to us what
Jesus won for us. Jesus said so. He who believes what Jesus says has what his Baptism
promises. He who does not believe what
Jesus says, rejects what Jesus has won. We
cherish our Baptism for the exact same reason that we cherish our Savior. Jesus saves us by suffering and dying on the
cross to take our sin away. Baptism
saves us by bringing to us the benefits of His great sacrifice. Jesus saves us by overcoming death in our
place and rising from the dead. Baptism
saves us because through it Jesus joins us to Himself – so closely — as Paul
says, “we were buried with Him through
baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
Baptism, the word itself, simply means a
washing. It is a washing of water. But we know that it is not plain water,
because Jesus has bound His command and promise to it. The command of Jesus is that all nations be
baptized in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The
water is not the operative part though – although it is part of the command,
and so it can’t be replaced with anything else.
But the water can be splashed or sprinkled; the one being baptized can
be dunked or hardly even get wet. It
doesn’t matter.
What gives Baptism its power to wash
away sin is not the impressive looking symbolism of the act. No. Baptism’s power is in the word of
God. With the word of God, Baptism is a
life-giving water, and a washing of regeneration in the Holy Spirit. With the word of God, it is a washing that
gives us a clean conscience in Christ.
It cleanses us with the blood that flowed from Christ’s pierced side –
and if you remember, what flowed with it?
It was water – in order to teach us where this blood of Christ
benefits us. And where is that? It is where He who took our sin away
washes us and robes us in His righteousness by the power of water and the
word.
God sent John the Baptist to prepare the
way of the Lord by preaching the word of God.
Of course he baptized. Yes, but
he didn’t just organize some sort of assembly line and send people on their
ways once they dried off. Baptism cannot
be divorced from clear Law-Gospel preaching.
To ignore and not want to hear the preaching of God’s word is to deny
your Baptism. John’s Baptism was a Baptism
of repentance, after all, for the remission of sins – something we need every
day. This means that what John did for
sinners in the Jordan River could not be separated from what he preached. And what happened to each one of us – and for
most of us while we were still babies – cannot be separated from what all
Christians continually need to hear lest our faith be starved and we lose the
Holy Spirit.
John preached repentance – no, more than
that, he preached a life of
repentance – a life of constantly being mindful of our sinful nature and our
sinful failings. It sounds depressing, I
know. But we need to know what we’re up
against. Our sinful nature is not just a
weakness that slows us down. No. It must be repented of. The Old Adam must be drowned. A new man must be put on daily to rise and
live before God in faith.
That is why we need Jesus. Without His grace and Spirit, we can neither
repent of our sin nor begin to live a life that is pleasing to Him. We need Him to take our sin away. We need to know God’s favor and
kindness. We need Him to whom John
pointed: the Lamb of God who bears the sin of the world. It is only through the preaching of the
Gospel that God creates faith in our convicted hearts – faith to believe the
promise and to live at peace with God.
Baptism is not for people who have no
sin. It is for sinners who need to
repent of their sins and who need their sin to be taken away. Plain and simple. And so consider John’s surprise when Jesus of all people – the Lord whose way
he had come to prepare – came to be baptized by him. “But I need to be baptized by You,” John
objected, “and are You coming to me?”
“You are sinless. I am not.
I need what You have. You do not
need what I have. All I have is sin.” But Jesus wanted
what John had. That’s the point. And John needed Jesus to take it, even as we
need Him to take what we have as well. That’s
why Jesus responded the way He did: “Permit
it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
Now, let’s consider a bit these words of
our Lord, especially seeing how quickly and easily they persuaded John to do
what He said.
What does it mean to fulfill all righteousness?
What does it mean to fulfill all righteousness?
Righteousness. The absence of sin. Full obedience to the Law. Jesus did and was exactly what God required
of a man to do and be. And it pleased
Him. His life was immaculate. He was
conceived and born without sin, but in perfect holiness. His life He lived in full obedience to His
earthly parents. He submitted Himself to
the cares and needs of His neighbor in perfect love. And in perfect love He feared and trusted His
Father. Jesus lived the only life that
the law cannot condemn. In fact, the law
must reward it.
It seems, then, that Jesus had already
fulfilled all righteousness. What more
did He need to do? Certainly He did not
need anything from the filthy water of a sinner’s Bath. But that’s exactly what He needed. He needed our sin. He needed to take upon Himself and into Himself everything that our Baptism
washed off of us – like a filthy sponge.
He needed to become the Man,
the new Adam in our place, who not only lived His life in active obedience to
His Father, doing what the Law says,
but who gave up His life in passive obedience as well, receiving what the law threatens.
This is what God required. The law decrees that the one who sins shall
die. But in His mercy, God sent His Son
to take our place. When Jesus was
baptized, He sealed the deal. He would die. The just for the unjust. He marked Himself as the Man. And so here
we see righteousness fulfilled, not for His own
sake, but for ours.
And so this is how it works: when we are
baptized, all our sins are washed away and left in the water, and we emerge
perfect and spotless, not marked as those to die, but as saints of God who live
forever. When Christ was baptized, He
took upon Himself all our sins and became the sole sinner, the sole
transgressor, the sole idolater, adulterer, fornicator, wife-beater,
abortionist, homosexual, hen-pecker, disobedient child, oath-breaker, you name
it. You confess it. Jesus became it. And He placed into the water of Baptism the
perfect robe of righteousness that covers all these sins and that adorns all
these sinners. Jesus could say, “Go
and baptize all nations.” Why?
Because in His own Baptism He
took upon Himself the sins of all nations.
That's why.
And with this God is pleased: that our
sins be punished without mercy on the cross where His beloved Son must suffer
and die in anguish, and that we be honored with His holy life that merits
mercy, and that is crowned with glory.
Notice that Jesus said to John, “it
is fitting for us to
fulfill all righteousness.” Well,
of course Jesus is speaking to John. And
look at what they fulfilled together. Nowhere is the blessed exchange between Christ
and the world seen more clearly than here where John’s own ministry finds its
fulfillment, and where Christ begins His own.
But of course there’s more significance to this “us” that Jesus speaks of.
It is certainly true that the fulfillment
of all righteousness is an historical event.
It happened that Jesus lived a perfect life as a man and died in our
place and rose from the dead to defeat the grave. It happened.
There is nothing more that need be done.
But righteousness is not simply fulfilled in the distant recesses of
time. No. Righteousness is also fulfilled
today when you have it. It is fulfilled
when the sinner who confesses his guilt and mortality is justified by God and
given life. There is righteousness fulfilled: where God forgives the
sinner His sin for Jesus’ sake. When the
sinner believes it and lives.
We are Christians. This means that we are Christ’s. We are
joined to Him. We follow Him. We became Christians in our Baptism. We were baptized into the name of God, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Of
course, God has always been Triune. How
many endless references in the Old Testament are there to His threeness and yet
to His oneness? But here at Jesus’
Baptism we see the Trinity revealed for the first time by name. The Holy Spirit descends upon the Son in the
form of a dove. The Father speaks upon
His Son from heaven.
The name of God is revealed where His
saving work is revealed. And where is
God’s name revealed in our life? There
we find God’s saving work. Just as the
Holy Spirit anointed Jesus at His Baptism to be the Christ who brings forth
righteousness through His death on the cross, so also in our Baptism the Holy
Spirit anoints us to be Christians who possess this righteousness by faith. Just as the Father spoke from heaven
announcing that this is His beloved Son who pleases Him, so also the Father
speaks at our Baptism, declaring us His beloved children, and covering us with
the pleasing obedience of Jesus.
When Jesus commanded His Apostles to
baptize all nations, He gave them the words we still use. These words are not magic. No, they are the words of God that join us to
the works of God. These words are His
very name.
Everyday we are called to return to our
Baptism, where God placed His name upon us.
We do this by listening to the word of God. By going to church and believing what we
hear. God’s word teaches us how to live
a life of repentance. We hear His holy
law; we acknowledge our sin. We don’t
grow fidgety when the word is taught, or when the message is less that
giddy. No, we examine ourselves. What does God say about how you live your
life, how you spend your time, what you think about? What does God say? What does He reveal that you don’t want
brought up? Sin? Weak faith?
But dear Christian, look at why Jesus
was anointed and consider why you were baptized. Listen to what the Father has said of Him,
and what He still says of you. He comes
not to condemn you, but to bring righteousness and to give it to you. He comes not to shout and make a scene, but
to serve you humbly through the forgiveness of your sins. A bruised reed, hanging for its life, He will
not break, but deal gently with all that burdens you and causes you to falter
and bend. And He gives you
strength. A smoking wick He will not
snuff out. But He will continue to speak
even to the weakest faith the words that bring unspeakable consolation and the
bright light of Hope.
Return to your Baptism often. What is this to say other than: be a Christian. Hear the word of God. Go to where the Holy Spirit works faith in
your heart through the word that the Father declares: You are my beloved son,
my beloved daughter. I am well pleased
with you.
In the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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