Why Jesus Needed to Be Baptized

Jesus’s Person and Work

How important was it that Jesus was baptized? My hunch is that most of us would say “not very.” Certainly, it does not seem as obviously important as his death and resurrection. And yet each of the four Gospels thinks that it is important. The Synoptic Gospels all narrate his baptism (Matthew 3:13–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–22), and John alludes to it (John 1:31–34).

The baptism of Jesus is an important event in his life that helps us understand his person and his work. In fact, John the Baptist summarized the reason that he baptized in terms of revealing Jesus: “I myself did not know him [sc. Jesus], but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel” (John 1:31). John baptized people, including Jesus, so that Jesus might be revealed. In the rest of this article, I want to consider how the baptism of Jesus, as presented in Matthew and Mark (with some help from Paul and Luke), deepens our understanding of his person and his work.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we read of John hesitating to baptize Jesus (Matt. 3:14–15). He tries to refuse him and suggests that it would be more appropriate if the baptism happened the other way round—and Jesus baptized John! This is understandable since people confessed their sins as they were baptized by him (Matt. 3:6). How could it be appropriate for Jesus to be baptized if baptism somehow symbolized forgiveness of and cleansing from sin? Jesus insists that John should baptize him, “for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15).¹ What does this mean? Essentially, it means that for God’s plan to be fulfilled, Jesus needed to submit to John’s baptism. God’s plan for Jesus was that by him he would “save his people from their sins” (Matt 1:21). As such, Jesus’s submitting to John’s baptism anticipates and points to his work on the cross when he gave “his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). Jesus took upon himself the sins of his people—he paid the price for their sins. As Isaiah prophesied, he “was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many” (Isa. 53:12).

Although Mark’s Gospel gives us the shortest account of the baptism of Jesus, he connects it with his death in a profound way.² At Jesus’s baptism, three things happen: the heavens are “torn open” (Mark 1:10); the Spirit descends on him “like a dove” (Mark 1:10); and a voice from heaven states, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).

The voice of God from heaven connects Jesus’s baptism with his death. God tells Jesus, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased”. This language echoes Genesis 22 where God tells Abraham to sacrifice “your only son Isaac, whom you love” (Gen. 22:2; cf. Gen 22:12, 16). The similar description of Jesus in Mark 1:11 suggests an allusion to Jesus’s sacrificial death. The baptism of Jesus anticipates God will not “spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Rom. 8:32).³

The one being baptized is the Spirit-anointed Son of God who will die for his people to achieve their salvation.

Jesus actually undergoes another baptism in Mark’s Gospel. In chapter 10, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, ask Jesus for the honor of sitting “one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory” (Mark 10:37). He tells them they are ignorant of what they ask: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Mark 10:38). They respond that they are able. Jesus tells them that while he cannot decide who will sit at his right or his left, they will indeed drink the same cup and be baptized with the baptism that he himself will undergo. In using the imagery of the “cup” and his “baptism,” Jesus refers again to his death (which he has addressed in Mark 10:33–34). If Mark here associates baptism with Jesus’s death, it seems reasonable to see the earlier account of his baptism as anticipating that subsequent event.

The tearing open of the heavens (Mark 1:10) anticipates the later tearing of the curtain in the temple (Mark 15:38) and serves as a fulfillment of Isaiah 64:1, where the prophet prays, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down”. There, as here, God’s in-breaking presence is associated with the presence of the Holy Spirit (Isa. 63:10, 14). The Spirit’s descent is narrated with less commentary than in other Gospels (cf. the observation in John 1:32 that the Spirit remained on Jesus). Here, the emphasis falls on the simple fact of his being anointed with the Spirit. The one who will baptize with the Spirit receives an anointing with the Spirit at his own baptism. It is not that the Spirit was absent from Jesus before this point. Luke shows us that the Spirit was present with Jesus from his conception (Luke 1:35). However, at his baptism, the Spirit anoints Jesus for his task of salvation (Luke 4:18, “to set at liberty those who are oppressed”). The one being baptized is the Spirit-anointed Son of God who will die for his people to achieve their salvation.

Baptism in Mark, then, speaks of Jesus’s death and the gift of the Spirit. In Jesus’s “first” baptism (by John), he receives the Spirit. This anticipates his “second” baptism (his death) when he gives the Spirit (i.e., baptizes with the Spirit). Mark’s theology here corresponds to Paul’s in Galatians 3: Christ died (Gal. 3:13 being “hanged on a tree”) so that “we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:14). Christ’s death secures the gift of the Spirit.

Jesus’s baptism thus anticipates his death and secures the Spirit so that he can accomplish his sin-bearing death and saving gift of the Spirit, thus fulfilling God’s plan.

Peter Orr is the author of The Beginning of the Gospel: A Theology of Mark.

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