John the Baptist seems to be a very eccentric man. He wore camel’s hair and ate honey and locusts!
Even though he seemed out of this world, many people went to him to be baptized by him, because they recognized that he spoke God’s word.
What was John’s message?
He preached: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2).
What does repentance mean today?
Do you know that the gospel is two parts? One part is repentance. The other part is trusting in Jesus.
Jesus Himself also preached repentance.
“From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near'” (Matthew 4:17).
Jesus preached the exact same message John the Baptist preached!
Repentance means to turn away from sins (e.g. to keep away from doing bad deeds).
When people asked John what they should do, John answered each group of people according to what they could do:
“And the crowds were questioning him, saying, ‘Then what shall we do?’ And he would answer and say to them, ‘The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.’ And some tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, ‘Teacher, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.’ Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, ‘And what about us, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.’” (Luke 3:10-14)
So repentance means to keep away from doing bad and to learn to do good.
Faith and repentance
The other part of the gospel is to believe in Jesus for salvation. Our deeds (no matter how hard we try) are flawed, because we all have sinned. Good deeds cannot cover bad deeds. So we need a Savior to save us from our sins. Jesus died on the cross for us so that by His righteousness (the good and perfect God dying for the unrighteous), we can be credited with His righteousness. It is not by our own righteousness we are saved. It is by God’s righteousness we are saved.
We are saved when we trust in Christ’s righteousness and His substitutionary death (of taking our punishment of sins for us). He paid for our sins in full.
Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
So this was the gospel that was preached.
This gospel was also preached by Paul: “I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:21).
Believing in God is two parts: trusting Jesus for salvation (faith) and learning to be faithful to Him (repentance).
This is the true gospel. Jesus wants us to repent and believe (not just believe and do lip service only). He wants us to not be hypocrites, but be His true children.
Baptism
Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. You may wonder, since Jesus is perfect, why does He need to be baptized? And what does baptism really mean?
Jesus is perfect and He is the second Person of the Trinity. Jesus is God the Son. Even though Jesus is God (equal in ability and power to the Father and Holy Spirit), He gave up His godly powers when He came to earth.
Jesus came to earth fully human (even though He is God at the same time). Jesus took on human flesh from the time He was born by Mary to the time of His death on the cross. Jesus performed many miracles, but those miracles were not performed by His own power.
Jesus performed miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit who alighted on Him (Matthew 3:16). Jesus became a model for us on how we should also live.
Baptism is a representation of being dead to sins and alive in God. The baptisms in the Bible were full-body immersions in water.
Can you picture it? Full-body baptism is kind of like being buried and then resurrected, which is what it represents!
“We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:2-4)
So Jesus became a model for us today. We are baptized with Him to die to sins. And we are alive in Christ to live to God. God gives us His power through the Holy Spirit to live this new life. Just as the Holy Spirit was at work in Jesus’ life to perform many miracles, God can do wonders in our own life by His power too.
When Jesus resurrected three days after His death, He rose with a new glorious body. So all His followers will also be clothed with new bodies in the end time as well.
Read Matthew 3 (NIV) in the Bible. See other lessons in the Gospel of Matthew.