Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the book of
Matthew, the gospel of Matthew today, chapter three. And the
title of the message is The Baptism of Jesus Christ. The Baptism
of Jesus Christ. And that's in Matthew chapter
three in verse 15, where the Lord appeared upon the scene
as John the Baptist was preaching. preaching to the multitudes,
and especially, specifically, it's mentioned here that the
Pharisees and the Sadducees were there at John's, while John was
preaching and John was baptizing. And he spoke some very pointed
words to them, not meaning to offend them, but to tell them
the truth. The gospel is an offensive message. to the natural man,
especially those who are steeped in self-righteous false religion. In fact, John told him, he called
him, look at verse seven of Matthew chapter three. It says, when
he saw many of the Pharisees and the Sadducees come to his
baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers. You know what a viper
is, that's a poisonous snake. And he says, who hath warned
you to flee from the wrath to come? Now, they didn't think
that they were headed to wrath. They thought they were blessed.
They thought they were working their way to heaven and salvation. That's a lot of people today.
They believe that salvation is conditioned on themselves. And
if they meet those conditions, whatever those conditions are,
depending upon what denomination you are or what religion you
hold, that you're going to make it to heaven. You're going to
establish a right relationship with God by your works, but that's
just not so. That is false religion. I've often on this program made
the point that that which is common, two things that are common
to all false religions is number one, they preach that salvation
And eternal life is conditioned on people, on man, sinners, in
some way, to some degree, at some stage. And they always,
secondly, they always measure righteousness, holiness, goodness
on a sliding scale. Most people would think, for
example, that, well, you've got to be good to go to heaven, but
you don't have to be perfect. And they think, well, I'm good
enough. And I heard a preacher say this several years ago. He
said, one of the most frightening statements that you'll find in
the Bible, or one of the most horrific statements is this,
God is good. And people would automatically
think, well, why would you say that's a frightening statement? Well, it is only if you know
what it really means, because the fact that God is good, we
need to understand we're not good. Now, I know that men and
women measure goodness by different standards, but I'm talking about
God's standard. God's standard of goodness is
perfection. the perfection of the law, perfect
obedience. And somebody told me one time,
said, well, nobody can do that. And I said, well, that's right.
We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. And that's
why salvation is by grace through the righteousness of Christ,
the goodness of Christ. And so the standard of good in
God's sight is the perfection that can only be found in Christ. And that's why we must look to
Him for salvation, not to ourselves. For by grace are you saved through
faith that not of yourselves, not of works lest any man should
boast. We need to understand these fundamental
principles of the gospel to understand what salvation is and what it
involves. Well, here's the Pharisees and
the Sadducees, both were false religionists who thought that
they could make themselves righteous enough by their works to be accepted
with God. And John tells them, look at
verse eight of Matthew three, bring forth therefore fruits
meet for repentance. What he's simply saying there
is this, you need to repent of your false religion. The thing
about it is, We may say, well, this is a good person. This is
a person who goes to church. This is a person who gives their
tithe. This is a person who tries to
be a responsible, charitable citizen. And then we look at
somebody who's an open, blatant sinner, a drunk, or a drug pusher,
or a drug taker, and you say that person's a bad person, all
of that. Here's the point. no matter who
you are or what you're trying to do. If you're seeking salvation
and blessings from God based upon your own goodness, your
own works, you need to repent of that. Now, we would all agree
that the drunk needs to repent of his drunkenness. that the
harlot needs to repent of her harlotry. There's no problem
with that in our minds, but look at the false religionist who's
made great strides in human behavior. Do they need to repent? That's
what John's telling these Pharisees and these Sadducees. These were
the men whom the people looked up to in religion to be their
religious leaders, their mentors. And he says in verse nine, think
not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father.
Just because you have a physical connection to Abraham means nothing. That will not get you into heaven.
I've often said that the unbelieving Jews had basically three things
that they look to in order to claim themselves, to judge themselves
to be righteous enough to go to heaven. their physical connection
with Abraham, their circumcision, circumcision of the males who
represented the whole family, and they thought they kept the
law of Moses. Well, being connected to Abraham
physically meant nothing. That's what he's saying here.
We don't say that you have Abraham to your father, for I say unto
you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto
Abraham. In other words, if all it was
is a physical connection with Abraham, God could take these
rocks and make them human and descending from Abraham. God's purpose in salvation is
not just to populate the new heavens and the new earth. God's
purpose in salvation is to glorify himself in the salvation of sinners. And so he says in verse 10, Matthew
3, 10. Now also the ax is laid unto
the root of the tree, therefore every tree which bringeth not
forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. In other
words, what John is doing in his preaching is he's chopping
out the root of their sin, exposing it for what it is. He's rocking
their boat. And he showed all you're doing
is just bringing forth fruit unto death that's gonna be burned.
in the fire. And then he says this in verse
11, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he
that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I'm not worthy
to bear. He shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire. Now he's talking about Christ.
John the Baptist was the last of the Old Testament prophets,
the one who ushered in the coming of the Messiah. And that's what
he's talking about. He said, one come in after me,
I can baptize you in water, but I cannot baptize you with the
Holy Spirit, with power, with fire. That's what he's talking
about. Now that baptism of the Holy
Spirit is the new birth. And don't go, listen now, don't
listen to these false preachers who tell you that the baptism
of the Holy Spirit is some later act whereby you get to speak
in tongues or anything like that. That's not what the baptism of
the Spirit is. The baptism of the Spirit is
when He immerses you spiritually into the grace of God, giving
you spiritual life, giving you faith and repentance, giving
you a new heart, a new spirit, new life, new knowledge, all
of that, eyes to see, ears to hear. And what John the Baptist
is saying this, I can baptize you, but I can't give you life.
I can baptize you, but I can't save you. I'm not the savior. You remember John the Baptist
later on said, I've told you I'm not the Christ. But he's
coming and he says in verse 12, whose fan is in his hand and
he will thoroughly purge his floor and gather his weed into
the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable
fire. Christ is going to save his people. And those that live
and die in unbelief, rejecting Him, they're gonna burn up. He's gonna separate the wheat
from the tares, the chaff. And He has the right to do that.
Now, we come to the baptism of Jesus Christ. Verse 13, then
cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized
of Him. Now, this is the beginning of
the public ministry of Jesus throughout the land of Judea.
And it says, verse 14, he came to be baptized of John. And verse
14 says, but John forbade him saying, I have need to be baptized
of thee and comest out of me. John recognized who Jesus was,
that he is the Messiah. This is the Messiah, Son of God,
prophesied and pictured, typified, testified of in the Old Testament
from Genesis to Malachi. This is Him. He's finally come. And John says, I'm not worthy.
Well, John had to be set straight on that. And so Jesus said, verse
15, and this is our main text here, and Jesus answering said
unto him, suffer or allow it to be so now, all right, for
thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. And then he
suffered him, John baptized. Now, years ago, a man asked me
this. He said, why was Jesus baptized? And here's what he said. He said,
why was Jesus baptized? He didn't have any sins to confess.
Well, first of all, I told him, I said, you're misunderstanding
baptism. Baptism is not a confession of
sin per se. In other words, when a believer
And make no mistake about it now, if you read the Bible and
believe the Bible, baptism is for believers. It's not for infants. It's not a christening. where
you name an infant and dedicate that infant, nothing wrong. All
parents are gonna name their children and hopefully if you're
believers, you're gonna dedicate your children to the Lord, which
simply means you're going to raise them as the Bible says
to raise them in the admonition of the Lord, teaching them the
word of God, telling them the truth, disciplining them. So that's true. But baptism,
the ordinance Christ told his disciples, you go out and preach
the gospel and baptize them. That's the ordinance. Now the
word baptized and baptism means different things in different
contexts. The root word, the basic word, baptism, means placed
into. That's what it means. Now sometimes
people will tell you, well, it means immersed. Well, it does.
Immersed into, placed into. That's why believer's baptism
is by immersion. You're placed into the water. The water's not poured upon you.
The water's not sprinkled upon you. And I'm telling you now,
I'm not here just to offend you, but I'm telling you the truth.
If you're a believer, you are to follow the commandment of
Christ to be baptized in water, to be immersed in water, as a
confession of something. But it's more than just a confession
of sin. Baptism, now baptism in water
does not save sinners. Baptism in water does not wash
away the sins. No, sir. There's no power in
the baptismal waters to wash away your sins. Baptism in water
is not even where the blood of Christ is applied. The blood
of Christ is sprinkled or applied to a believer when they're born
again by the Spirit and they come to faith in Christ, the
God-given faith in Christ. That's when the blood is applied
to your heart. And so, baptism is an ordinance
of confession, but not just of sin. Baptism is a believer's
confession that he or she is a sinner saved by grace through
the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is all because of our
identification with Him in His death, burial and resurrection
and our faith in Him. That's what baptism is. It's
a confession of something that's already taken place. And it's
taken place on the cross when Christ died for my sins. And
his death on the cross is called a baptism. And it's a legal baptism
there. I wasn't there personally, but
I was there in the person and work of Christ. He's my surety.
He's my substitute. He's my representative. When
he died, I died. When he was buried, I was buried.
When he arose again, I rose again. And He's now seated at the right
hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for me.
How do you know it's for me? Because I believe in Him, I trust
Him, I rest in Him for all salvation, for all righteousness. And so
there's that confession, see? If you haven't been born again
by the Spirit and come to faith in Christ, if you go and get
baptized, all you're doing is just taking a swim. You're not
being baptized scripturally. Somebody told me one time that
they were baptized under the preaching of a false gospel.
You weren't baptized, you were just dunked. Now that's what
I'm saying. Baptism is for believers, believers
baptism. And it's by immersion, that's
what it means. Well, why was Jesus Christ baptized? The man
asked me, he said he had no sins to confess. Well, actually, Christ
did have sins to confess. But it were not sins that he
committed. And they were not sins that he
was contaminated with. He did not become a sinner. He
was never contaminated with the sins for his people for whom
he died. He was never corrupted. Christ
was always the perfect, sinless Lamb of God, without blemish
and without spot. So what sins was He confessing?
It was the sins of His people, God's chosen people, God's elect,
His church, His sheep, imputed to Him. And that's why He went
to the cross. to pay for sins that were charged
to his account. And let me give you some advice
here. If you wanna be a serious Bible
student, if you really wanna understand the gospel and salvation,
write down that word impute, I-M-P-U-T-E, or imputed, or imputation. And look it up in the scriptures,
Old Testament and New, especially the New. And what does it mean? Because it's the basis of salvation. It involves the ground of salvation. There is the imputation, the
charging of the sins of God's people to Christ. Now that happened
before the foundation of the world when Christ was made our
surety. The surety of His people. You
know what a surety does? Stands responsible for the debt
of someone else. And often in the Bible, the word
sin is used in the sense of running up a debt. We talk about somebody
who's committed a crime and we put them on trial and that they're
pronounced guilty, then they're sentenced and they have to go
to prison or whatever happens to pay their debt to society. Well, that's what Christ did.
He went to the cross to pay the sin debt of his people. He is
our sin offering, our sin bearer. He bore the sins of many. Okay,
so that's sin imputed to him legally, forensically. Now he knew no sin, he never
committed a sin. He is the perfect impeccable
Christ. There was no possibility that
he could commit sin. Now why is that? Because he is
God manifest in the flesh. God cannot sin. And so Christ,
who is God in the flesh, the God-man, that's the glory of
his person, he committed no sin, he knew no sin. 2 Corinthians
5, 21 says that. He was made sin, but how was
he made sin? Literally and legally by imputation
of the sins of his sheep to his account. And so all the sins
of his people were laid to his charge. put on his account. All right. Now, going back to
Matthew 3.50. Now, on the other hand, the righteousness
that Christ worked out is imputed to all of his people. So my sins
cannot be charged to me. cannot be laid to my account.
That's what it means when God says, I'll remember your sins
no more. They cannot be brought up again at judgment or laid
to your charge. Romans eight and verse 34, I
think it is 33 or 34. It says, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather
is risen again, seated at the right hand of the father, ever
living to make intercession for us. But I stand before God, not
in my own works, but in the righteousness of Christ imputed, charged to
me. And so when you read in 2 Corinthians
5, 21, it says, for he made him to be sin, Christ who knew no
sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him. And that's the great exchange.
Well, listen to what Christ said in Matthew 3, 15. He said, and
Jesus answering said to him, suffered to be so. Now, for thus
it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Now that's why
Christ was baptized. What are you talking about? Well,
he says, for thus it becometh us. The us there, I believe he's
talking about is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as we'll
see in the next couple of verses. But what Christ was doing in
his baptism, And it says there that, look at verse 16, and Jesus,
when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water.
How was he baptized? He was immersed in the water,
placed into the water, went under the water, and he came up straightway,
all right? And it says, and lo, the heavens
were opened unto him. Now hold on right there. What
do you mean fulfill all righteousness? Well, what did it take for Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah, the surety, the substitute, the
Redeemer of His people to bring about righteousness, the perfection
of the law and justice of God that would enable the Father
to be just to justify his people. It took his death, his obedience
unto death, his burial, and his resurrection. And that's why
he was baptized. He was showing in his baptism
a picture of what it would take for him to fulfill all righteousness
for his people. And it says, heaven was opened
unto him. And look at verse 16 of Matthew 3. It says, he saw
the Spirit of God descending like a dove. There's the testimony
of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. And lighting
upon him, in verse 17, and lo, a voice from heaven saying, this
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. There's the testimony
of the Father. So you have the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit engaged in the salvation of His people based
upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to them, the righteousness
which He accomplished by His obedience unto death. And He
went down into the water, He died, He was buried, and He came
out straightway. He arose again the third day.
And that's what it took for him to fulfill all righteousness
for his people. And that righteousness is the
righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. Romans 1.16, Paul
wrote, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first and the Greek also. Verse 17, for therein is the
righteousness of God revealed from faith, from the revelation
of God in his word, to faith, to believing on Christ. For as
it is written, the just shall live by faith." Now what is it
to be justified? Who are the just? Those whose
sins are forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ. And those who
are declared righteous in God's sight based upon the righteousness
of Christ imputed to them. And how do you know who they
are? They live by faith, God-given faith, and that faith looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of their faith, looking unto
Him as the Lord, our righteousness. Romans 10, four says it this
way, for Christ is the end, the fulfillment, the finishing, completion,
perfection of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. that's
what he was doing at the beginning of his public ministry. He was
setting forth the very reason that he was sent to this world
to redeem his people from their sins by putting forth and working
out a perfect righteousness through his obedience unto death as the
surety, the substitute, and the redeemer of his people. And what
did he have to do? He had to keep the law of God
perfectly. And he had to be immersed under
the wrath of God for sins imputed to him. See, not because he was
a sinner, but because he was a sin bearer, a sin offering,
a substitute, a surety. He had to be immersed into the
wrath of God and die and be buried and raised again the third day.
That's why he was baptized. He was sending forth his work
to fulfill all righteousness on behalf of his people. And
his whole life was dedicated to that work. And believers are
baptized in His name, in the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, as a confession of their identification with
Him in His death, burial, and resurrection, and their faith,
God-given faith, in Him as their only hope of righteousness. Hope
you'll join us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.