Matt 3:1–17 — To Fulfill All Righteousness

Matthew’s opening chapters identify Jesus as Israel’s long-awaited Messiah. Chapter 1 gives his royal genealogy and establishes his right to David’s throne. Yet his kingdom is not what many Jews expected. The angel tells Joseph to name the child Jesus “for he will save his people from their sins.” He comes not to deliver Israel from Rome but to rescue his people from spiritual exile.

Jesus is therefore a particular kind of King. His reign addresses the underlying cause of Israel’s misery: sin, guilt, and estrangement from God. Political liberation without reconciliation to God could never accomplish the salvation promised by the prophets.

Chapter 2 shows Jesus hailed as King even in infancy. Ironically, Gentile wise men acknowledge him while Herod and Jerusalem’s leaders respond with fear. Herod’s attempt to kill the children of Bethlehem foreshadows the nation’s later rejection and crucifixion of Jesus. Throughout these chapters, Matthew’s fulfillment quotations show that redemptive history reaches its goal in God’s anointed King.

Approximately thirty years pass between chapters 2 and 3. Jesus grows from childhood into manhood, likely working with Joseph in the family trade. Matthew now brings us to Jesus’ public presentation to Israel, when John baptizes him and the Holy Spirit anoints him as Messiah. Before recounting that baptism, Matthew introduces John’s preparatory ministry.

The Ministry of John the Baptist

A Voice in the Wilderness

John comes preaching in the wilderness of Judea: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The wilderness was a dry region of low hills and scrub vegetation, with somewhat greater growth near the Jordan. Its importance, however, is theological rather than merely geographical.

Matthew identifies John as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” This quotation comes from Isaiah 40. Isaiah has already announced Israel’s exile as judgment for covenant disobedience. He then looks beyond exile to restoration:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned.

God promises to do something new. Israel’s restoration will be like a new exodus. In the first exodus, God led his people through the sea and formed them into a nation in the wilderness. Isaiah announces another highway in the wilderness upon which God will lead and recreate his people:

Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.

This transformation includes a reversal within the people of God. The humble and lowly, like valleys, will be raised up. The proud and self-righteous, like mountains, will be brought low. Jesus will humble scribes and Pharisees who trust their scrupulous law-keeping while receiving tax collectors, sinners, and outcasts into the kingdom. Ultimately, many within Israel will reject the Messiah while Gentiles stream into his kingdom.

The scale of Isaiah’s imagery is immense. Valleys rise, mountains fall, rough terrain becomes a plain, and the Lord’s glory appears before all flesh. God is not merely improving the existing order. He is carrying out a decisive upheaval in which the proud are humbled, the lowly receive grace, and the covenant people are transformed around the Messiah.

John’s ministry begins the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Despite Israel’s sin and continuing spiritual exile, God is coming to restore his kingdom, accomplish a new exodus, and reconstitute his people.

The Elijah Who Was to Come

John wears camel’s hair and a leather belt and eats locusts and wild honey. His appearance recalls Elijah, who also lived in the wilderness and wore a garment of hair with a leather belt. Elijah was among the earliest prophets; John is the final prophet of the old covenant.

As Elijah pronounced judgment upon Israel’s idolatry, John warns of the approaching day of wrath. As Elijah divided the Jordan and reenacted the exodus, John baptizes in the Jordan to herald a new exodus. As Elijah anointed kings, John will baptize Jesus and present him as God’s anointed King.

John’s place at the Jordan gathers several biblical themes into one scene. Israel once crossed these waters to enter the land, and Elijah and Elisha later crossed them in connection with prophetic succession. John now summons Israel back to the Jordan as though the nation must begin again. The people need more than minor reform; they need a new exodus under the promised King.

John deliberately embodies Malachi 4:5: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.” Jesus later confirms that John is the promised Elijah (Matt. 11:14). John announces that the long-awaited time has arrived.

Repent, for the Kingdom Is Near

John’s preaching can be summarized in one word: repent. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” To prepare the Lord’s way means straightening what is crooked and turning from sin before the coming day. John warns his hearers to flee from the wrath to come, bear fruit consistent with repentance, and avoid the judgment awaiting fruitless trees and worthless chaff.

The image of fiery judgment also comes from Malachi 4:1: “The day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble.” John says the Messiah holds a winnowing fork. After harvested wheat was dried, a farmer tossed it into the air. The wind carried away the light chaff while the grain fell to the threshing floor. The Messiah will gather his wheat into the barn and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.

God is about to sift his covenant people, remove hypocrites and evildoers, and preserve a righteous remnant. John therefore calls Israel to repent and bear the fruit God seeks.

John directs this warning especially toward those tempted to trust their ancestry. They must not say, “We have Abraham as our father.” God can raise children for Abraham from stones. Descent from Abraham does not shield an unrepentant heart. The axe already lies at the root of every tree that fails to bear good fruit.

The problem is that no one in Israel can produce sufficient repentance and righteousness. Generation after generation rebelled against God. Israel’s hardness eventually brought Assyrian and Babylonian judgment, Jerusalem’s destruction, and exile. A remnant returned and rebuilt the temple, but the people’s hearts remained hard.

The Pharisees and Sadducees present themselves for baptism as though they constitute the righteous remnant. John sees through their outward religion and calls them a brood of vipers. As Jesus later says, they honor God with their lips while their hearts remain far from him.

God has promised a new exodus and a restored Israel, but Israel cannot restore itself. The people cannot repent adequately, keep God’s law, or create the righteousness his kingdom requires. At precisely this point, Jesus arrives.

This is the tension John’s ministry exposes. His demand is righteous, urgent, and necessary, but the people cannot supply what the kingdom requires. The command to repent reveals Israel’s need without itself creating the obedient Son whom God seeks.

The Baptism of Jesus

“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.” The words announce a dramatic entrance. Many have come to John, but none is sufficiently righteous, repentant, or obedient. Then Jesus arrives—the one faithful Israelite, the true Israel in whose person God will reconstitute his people.

John has announced a Messiah who will come in judgment, winnowing fork in hand. Yet Jesus arrives without the fork and asks to receive John’s baptism. John is understandably confused: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” John baptizes with water for repentance, while the coming one will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. Why should the greater submit to the lesser baptism?

Jesus answers, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” John’s baptism is for sinners who confess and repent before judgment. Jesus has no sins to confess, but he receives this baptism to identify with a nation that cannot repent, obey, or keep God’s law.

He does not identify with sin by becoming sinful. The sinless one willingly takes his place among sinners as their covenant representative. He enters the same waters as those confessing guilt because he has come to bear that guilt and accomplish the righteousness they lack.

Christ will return at the end of history to gather his redeemed people and burn the chaff. Before he judges, however, he places himself among those under judgment. Although he is the only perfectly righteous Israelite, he identifies with his people in their bondage to sin and spiritual exile.

To fulfill all righteousness, Jesus undertakes the human side of the covenant relationship on his people’s behalf. He must satisfy both dimensions of the covenant of works: the positive obedience God requires and the curse incurred through disobedience. He obeys where Israel and its kings failed, and he bears the penalty they brought upon themselves. The one who deserves no judgment places himself beneath the winnowing fork and will endure the fire of divine wrath at the cross.

This explains why judgment does not immediately fall when the Messiah appears. The judgment is not canceled but redirected toward the representative who has identified himself with his people. Before Christ separates wheat from chaff at the last day, he bears the covenant curse so that sinners united to him may be gathered safely into his barn.

Jesus’ words may also allude to Daniel 9:24, where the angel announces the climactic accomplishment of redemptive history, including the bringing in of everlasting righteousness and the anointing of the most holy. At his baptism, Jesus begins the path that will accomplish that righteousness through perfect obedience and atoning death.

His baptism is the first public step toward the cross. He commits himself to an obedient life that culminates when he lays down his life for his people. Having obeyed to the point of death and having been raised, he will receive and pour out the Holy Spirit upon the church. At Pentecost he fulfills John’s promise by baptizing his people with the Spirit and forming a new covenant people of believing Jews and Gentiles.

John could announce the Spirit’s coming without yet understanding every stage by which it would occur. The cross, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost had to unfold in their appointed order. Jesus first fulfills righteousness and bears wrath; then, as the exalted Messiah, he pours out the life-giving Spirit.

When Jesus comes out of the water, the heavens open, the Spirit descends upon him like a dove, and the Father declares, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The Spirit’s descent is his messianic anointing. Israel was God’s national son but failed in obedience. Jesus is the beloved Son who fulfills all righteousness and perfectly pleases the Father.

The Meaning of Jesus’ Baptism

John’s Ministry Was Preparatory

John baptized Israelites with a baptism of repentance to prepare them for judgment. It would be a serious mistake to isolate his message and treat it as the whole gospel. John’s preaching could not stand alone; its purpose was to prepare for the mightier one who would follow him.

When I was a student at UCLA, I attended a campus Bible study whose leaders taught that John’s message was the gospel. They said God was coming to save his friends and judge his enemies; therefore, one must become God’s friend by ceasing to sin and becoming obedient. Some even argued that preaching Christ’s death for the forgiveness of sins was a man-centered gospel.

That message left no meaningful place for Christ, atonement, faith, or forgiveness. It reduced the gospel to the command to stop sinning. Yet even John knew that his ministry was provisional. He pointed away from himself to the one mightier than he, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

A message may speak frequently about God, holiness, repentance, and judgment and still fail to proclaim the gospel if it omits Christ’s saving work. Repentance is indispensable, but it cannot function as our atonement or righteousness. If deliverance depends upon the sufficiency of our repentance, none of us can stand.

The good news is not that we can repent and obey sufficiently to escape wrath. We cannot. The only escape is faith in Jesus Christ, the wrath-bearer who enters the waters of judgment as our representative and substitute. He identifies with his people in sin and exile, bears the judgment they deserve, and leads them into the kingdom.

The Baptism Orients the Gospels

All four Gospels begin Jesus’ public ministry with his baptism and conclude it with his death and resurrection. These are the two fixed points of the Gospel narrative. Everything Jesus teaches and does between them must be interpreted in their light.

We might picture the baptism and passion as two poles with a clothesline stretched between them. Every healing, exorcism, parable, and teaching hangs upon that line. None should be removed from the messianic mission framed by Jesus’ identification with sinners at the Jordan and his saving death and resurrection.

This becomes especially important in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus commands, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” and warns that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. Detached from the baptism and cross, such sayings may sound like works righteousness or a new moralism.

Within the Gospel’s narrative, however, Jesus calls redeemed people to evangelical obedience—obedience flowing from gratitude for grace. We do not keep the law to earn God’s favor or entrance into heaven. Having freely received salvation, righteousness, and forgiveness through the Messiah, we joyfully seek to do the Father’s will.

The distinction is not between obedience and disobedience, as though grace made holiness optional. It is between obedience treated as the ground of acceptance and obedience produced by those already accepted in Christ. Jesus’ demanding words sound entirely different when heard within his saving mission.

Jesus’ descent into and emergence from the water foreshadows his death and resurrection. The Spirit’s descent anticipates the gift poured out after his exaltation. Everything that follows must be read in light of that saving movement.

The Spotlight Falls on Jesus

Matthew 3 ends with a spotlight from heaven fixed upon Christ. Jesus comes out of the water, the heavens open, the Spirit rests upon him, and the Father says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Everyone else recedes from view. John, the religious leaders, and the crowds stand in the shadows. Jesus alone occupies the center.

The Father directs us to look at the Son because he alone is perfectly pleasing to God. We cannot say this of ourselves. Even as the Spirit advances our sanctification, our repentance and obedience remain imperfect. We repent and then sin again.

We should desire growth in holiness and thank God for every evidence of the Spirit’s work. Yet those evidences fluctuate, and our perception of them is unreliable. Christ’s righteousness is complete and unchanging. Faith looks away from the unstable measure of our progress to the finished obedience of the beloved Son.

Do not therefore rest in your repentance, obedience, or progress in holiness. Look to Christ and his complete righteousness. This does not belittle sanctification; everyone united to Christ is progressively dying to sin and living to righteousness. But our acceptance with God never rests upon that work within us. It rests upon Christ’s obedience and cross.

There is nothing selfish or man-centered about seeking refuge in Christ’s forgiveness. The Father himself places the spotlight upon Jesus and declares his delight in him. God is pleased with us only in union with his beloved Son.

The Father is saying, in effect, “Here he is. Look at him. Trust him.” John’s unique ministry as the last prophet of the old covenant served the same purpose. Standing at the threshold of the new covenant, he points us toward Jesus. What a wonderful Savior we have. Let us fix our eyes upon him.