WE HAVE GOOD REASON TO BELIEVE
Matthew 3:16,17 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.
Not only for Jesus, John the Baptist, for all Christians, but for the world this certainly was a defining moment. For the first time in recorded history, God the Heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit and the Son of God, Jesus Christ were all being make manifest at one time at one spot. We first see plurality in God in Genesis 1:26 where is says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” This is only the first of many times that God speaks of himself in the plural or refers to himself such as ‘the the Lord said, And the Lord went ….’
With this I should note that the Bible is clear that there is one God. There are at least 25 verses stating this. In Mark 12:29 Jesus says that the the Lord our God, the Lord is one. The Heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit and Jesus all rule together as one God and not three God. While God refers to himself in the plural there is not a plurality of Gods as some other religious of the world proclaim. To bring this on terms we may handle easier, we can look to the the United States Government . In its government there are three equal branches the Executive, Legislative and the Judicial. The Heavenly Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit rule and reign over every aspect of creation including Satan, the powers of darkness and all that rebel from God. They can rebel, because God allows it.
We see that John the Baptist was preaching repentance for the kingdom of heaven or of God as we see in the book of Mark was near. Jesus also points to him as the Elijah like person that would precede him, the Messiah. (Malachi 4:5) So John the Baptist was a prophet in that he brought the message to the people to repent and turn from their sinfulness and return to the Lord, and he also was a prophet that would reveal and affirm the long awaited descendant of Abraham that would bless the world, the Jewish Messiah or Anointed One. Christ is the Greek word for the Hebrew word Messiah. So John was preparing the hearts of the people of Israel that they might be filled with the Spirit of God. We see this in Matt 3:11 where John tells the people that Jesus will baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire. That his winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering the wheat into his barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
While John the Baptist was going about his work of preparing the way for Jesus, he was also looking for the Messiah to be revealed even to him. We see in John 1:31 John says that the reason he was baptizing with water was that he might reveal the Messiah to Israel. Even though John was a cousin to Jesus he did not know that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. He knew that Jesus was a righteous holy man, because he told Jesus that he should be baptizing him and not the other way around. John did say that the evidence of Messiah would be that he would see the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on the Messiah. To that John affirms that he did see this happen to Jesus, and that Jesus is the Son of God.
The complexity of God and the Godhead is greater than what any person can understand. What we do know God has had to reveal to us. After all how can such a finite creation as we humans are that often have such a hard time discerning even the smallest of things, comprehend the infinite complexity of God? We simply can not. Even if God would explain everything about his makeup and all he can do, I don’t believe that we would have the capability of understanding it. It would be like a college professor explaining physics to a one year old. The information would be there, but it would be meaningless for the child. Often we feel that we can elevate ourselves to the point of not just understanding God, but to correct him and accuse him of being less than ourselves. Many have said that when they get to heaven they will want an explanation from God why a certain thing happened. That in itself should tell us how infantile in our thinking and relationship with God we are. Who are we to think God’s needs to explain anything to us or justify anything in his creation? When we get to heaven we will do well to have the courage to get up off of falling on our face before him. God is more awesome and overwhelming than what we can comprehend. God speaks universes into being. We are less than a speck on the earth let alone the galaxy we are apart of and there are billions of galaxies out there and we can’t even see how many more. So who are we that we should even ask anything from God let alone confront him of any error that we felt he did?
Well, the answer lies in God himself. The infinite all powerful God loves us, and wants us to love him and have intimate fellowship with him. God the Heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ so loved the world that they decided even before creation to provide an atonement for all who had sinned to be reconciled to them, so that we would no longer have to remain estranged. (I Peter 1:20 & II Samuel 14:14)
God loves us and wants us to have good reason to believe and trust in him. From the beginning with Adam and Even God promised that through their offspring one would come to crush the head of the serpent, Satan. God would provide a way for us to be reconciled to him when we had no way of doing it on our own. But for God to be just in forgiving us of our sinfulness, God would have to provide a substitution for his appeasement. And because of the great trespass of sinfulness and rebellion against God by humanity, an infinite appeasement would need to be made by God. Because Jesus is God and infinite in every way, his holiness and righteousness allowed his mercy and grace to be extended to all of humanity that might desire it receiving forgiveness and reconciliation.
While this is most wonderful in itself, God was not satisfied in it alone. God wanted us to have the assurance of our salvation even in this life on earth. God wanted to reveal himself on earth that we might have confidence and peace in our hearts of the reconciliation. In this we might be able to fellowship and love him as Adam and Eve. We can walk with him and talk to him each and every moment of our life. We no longer have to live in dreaded fear of God’s great wrath being poured out upon us at any given moment. We can experience a loving Heavenly Father that continually protects, provides and extends his love to us. We can experience the intimacy and empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And we can experience the union with the Son of God Jesus Christ our Lord, God, Savior and Groom.
The baptism of Jesus was not for his sake but for ours! John was right in that Jesus didn’t need baptism for the remission of sins. John did and everyone else does. But it was in his baptism we see the confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah that takes washes the sins of the world and the affirmation that he is the beloved Son of God. Even if we didn’t have all the miracles that Jesus did or the testimony of his resurrection, his baptism should be enough for us. There is not a greater need for affirmation of Jesus than that of the Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit. And there is no greater supplier of forgiveness, love, mercy and grace that in and through Jesus Christ.
Are you a Christian? Have you asked him to forgive you of your sins and to come into your heart? If not what more does he have to do to prove himself to you? After all what do you have to lose? You, I and everyone that has ever been created stands before God hopelessly lost in sin. Without Jesus no one can come to the Heavenly Father and find his forgiveness, mercy and grace. There is literally no one or anything else that do what only Jesus can do for you. If you haven’t become reconciled with God through Jesus I encourage you to do it right now. If you already have, then praise him and love him forever more!
Prayer: Thank you Heavenly Father, Holy Spirit and Jesus for intervening to spare us from a fate worse than death itself. Thank you for loving us so much! We love you Lord!
