Jesus was water baptized
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| The Jordan River (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Within the culture of first-century Judaism, ritual immersion in water was used in a variety of ways, each of which involved living water. The Jewish oral law known as the Mishnah carefully defines various sources for such living water. The purest form of living water is rainfall. Therefore, any water source that flows or directs rainfall is said to contain living water.4 Thus by definition, the water of a river, lake, or sea was considered living water. A manmade pool (Hebrew, mikveh) could also contain living water if it was constructed properly and was fed from a source that collected and directed water to that pool.
Such natural or man made receptacles for living water were employed in various Jewish rituals, the most common being ritual purification. Various actions, experiences, and even certain bodily secretions could make one ritually unclean. Jewish law provided the definition of such impurity and charted the path to ritual cleanness, one of which was ritual immersion in living water.
But when Jesus requested that John baptize him, he was not seeking ritual purification; rather, Jesus used baptism to mark his entrance into public office (see Num. 8:5–7; 1 Kings 1:38–40). Jesus had reached the age of thirty (Luke 3:23), and it is no coincidence that he sought baptism from John at this time because it marked the moment within Jewish society when one reached the age of authority.7
Why did he choose to use the water of the Jordan River? First of all, not just any water would do; the water used for this baptism had to be living water. Because the Jordan River naturally collected rainwater and directed it downstream, it fit the definition within Jewish law of living water.
If we go back in history, we find another association with the living water of the Jordan. At the time of Moses, the Promised Land included territory just east of the Jordan River (Deut. 3:17).8 When the Lord opened the waters of the flooding Jordan River allowing Joshua and the Israelites access to the Promised Land (Josh. 3:14–17), the river became synonymous with fulfillment of his promises. A monument had been built by the river to remind Israelites of the miraculous crossing of the Jordan and to highlight the reliability of God’s word (Josh. 4:19–24). No promise loomed larger in Scripture than God’s promise to provide the coming Rescuer. Thus when Jesus was inaugurated into his role as the Messiah, he chose to be baptized with the living water of the Jordan River—a water source that not only fit the definition of living water but also was a place long associated with the reminder that God keeps his promises.
Martin, J. C., Beck, J. A., & Hansen, D. G. (2010). A Visual Guide to Gospel Events: Fascinating Insights into Where They Happened and Why (pp. 38–39). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
