A sermon preached by at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on Trinity Sunday, May 31, 2026.
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:13–17).[1]
I want to begin with a question: Why would the eternal and sinless Son of God stand in line with sinners and submit to a baptism associated with repentance? Did he need to repent? Of course not, he was without sin from conception to the grave. Then, why?
As the scene unfolds, we discover that this is not merely a baptism but a revelation of God himself. We behold the Triune God: The Son submitting in humble obedience, the Spirit descending in anointing power, and the Father speaking from heaven with delight. Were we to walk through Matthew’s Gospel up to this scene, we would realize that Matthew has been preparing the reader for this moment. In chapter 1, Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit. In chapter 2, he is preserved through childhood by the providence of the Father. In chapter 3, John appears preaching repentance because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then the King of the kingdom himself arrives, not with military power, political spectacle, or earthly grandeur, but with the humility to wade into the Jordan’s muddy water and be baptized with sinners. Jesus was baptized not out of necessity but in humble obedience to the Father’s sovereign plan of redemption.
The Humble Obedience of the Son
Matthew tells us, “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him” (3:13). Serving as the last of the Old Testament prophets and the forerunner of the Messiah, John the Baptist preached the coming of the kingdom, called Israel to repent, and administered a baptism of repentance, an outward sign of contrition.John’s baptism was different from the Christian sacrament in that it was a momentary symbol exclusively for Old Covenant Israel, preparing God’s people for Christ’s coming. But it is to be to the baptizing prophet that the Lord Jesus comes, not to preach or teach or work miracles but to be baptized. And John, perhaps thinking what we may be thinking, sees something wrong with this, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (3:14). John Calvin notes that John “recognized Christ as pure and unstained, and therefore wondered why he should come to a baptism intended for sinners.”[2]
But have you ever been completely right about something only to experience a paradigm shift, to see something from a different perspective, and realize you were completely wrong?When John says, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” he is factually right.Jesus is holy, sinless, perfectly righteous, and yet Jesus insists, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (3:15).In other words, Jesus did not come to receive a baptism of repentance because of his sin.He, in humble obedience to his Father’s will, comes to associate with sinners, to receive their baptism, foreshadowing his substitutionary death even here at the beginning of his ministry.
This was the commencement of a ministry that would lead to the cross. He came not merely to teach righteousness but to accomplish it. He came as the second Adam, the true Israel, the obedient Son, and yet, even in his baptism, he identifies himself with sinners. Though sinless, he willingly steps into the place of those whom he came to save. And onward to the cross, without spot or blemish,[3] he came “to fulfill all righteousness.” The apostle Paul explains it this way, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus’ baptism foreshadows the great exchange of our sin for Christ’s righteousness.
Our hope before God then does not rest upon our imperfect righteousness but upon Christ’s perfect obedience. He was baptized, resisted every temptation, obeyed every command, and accomplished the reason for which he was sent. He fulfilled all righteousness for us. Let us thank God for his mercy and grace, because the righteousness God requires is the righteousness Christ provides.
The Anointing of the Spirit
Jesus was indeed baptized in the Jordan River, Matthew tells us, but that’s not all:“behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him” (3:16 b). This revelation is rich with theological imagery.Matthew Henry says the heavens were opened:
so as to discover something above and beyond the starry firmament . . . to encourage him to go on in his undertaking with the prospect of the glory and joy that were set before him. . . . [And to] encourage us to receive him, and submit to him. Sin shut up heaven, put a stop to all friendly intercourse between God and man; but now Christ has opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Divine light and love are darted down upon the children of men, and all by Jesus Christ, who is the ladder that has its foot on earth and its top in heaven.[4]
Divine revelation and action are witnessed by Jesus,[5] by John the Baptist,[6] and probably by those standing by, not for the sake of spectacle but to glorify God.
And what is witnessed is not only the heavenly expanse but the Holy Spirit descending like a dove. Just as we read in the creation account of the Spirit of God “hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2), here the Spirit descends upon the Creator of a new creation, for “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). Such a symbol may also signify the gentleness[7] and sorrow[8] we witness is Jesus’ ministry, as well as a symbol of substitutionary sacrifice.[9] As Matthew Henry puts it poetically, “That God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, is a joyful message, which comes to us upon the wing, the wings of a dove.[10]
To be clear, the Spirit descends upon the Son “like a dove” not because Jesus lacks deity or afterward becomes divine. Jesus is fully God and fully man. Rather, the Spirit’s descent upon Jesus serves as a messianic anointing for ministry. Just as in the Old Testament, prophets, priests, and kings were anointed for service, so Christ, as our Redeemer, executes the anointed offices of a prophet, priest, and king.[11] And in receiving this anointing, Jesus is fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy, when God said of Christ, “I have put my Spirit upon him” (Isa. 42:1). The Holy Spirit’s descent is the inauguration of Christ’s ministry.
And through faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit equips, enables, and empowers our ministry too. According to Romans 8:11, the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives within every believer. His presence is indeed sanctifying but also empowering, as we are helped[12] and led by the Spirit.[13] By his presence, we are, as the apostle Paul puts it, “more than conquerors” (Rom. 8:37), not merely surviving the Christian life but thriving!
And, we hear this clearly in the apostle’s epistle to the Philippians from prison, when he confesses, “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:12-13). In “any and every circumstance,” even a Roman jail cell, he was strengthened by the Spirit’s abiding presence. And the same Spirit who indwelled Paul, dwells within you and me. “This must be the stuff of our dreams,” Donald Macleod says. “There is nothing the church and the Christian cannot do, if we prayerfully set our minds to it. Our own inherent gifts and strength are not at all the measure of our potential. God, dwelling in us by his Spirit, is the measure.”[14] Let us not underestimate what God can do in and through us by his Holy Spirit.
The Voice of the Father
Finally, in our passage today, we come to the voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (3:17).God the Father audibly speaks, publicly declaring not only that Jesus is his beloved Son but also that he delights in him.In this declaration, we hear echoes from the Old Testament. For example, in the second Psalm, the Lord says to his anointed, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you” (Ps. 2:7).And in the forty-second chapter of Isaiah, the Lord says to his anointed, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights” (Isa. 42:1). When God the Father speaks here on the Jordan River, it should not surprise us that what he says is congruent with his written Word. Yet, in this special revelation, he declares what has always been, a love for his eternally-begotten Son. The Father’s declaration reveals relationship and affection but also fulfillment, and it comes not at the conclusion of Jesus’ earthly ministry but before it. Before the sermons, before the miracles, before the cross, before the resurrection, the Father delights in the Son because of who he is.
In his Gospel, the apostle John says, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:18).John’s phrase “at the Father’s side” literally translated is “into the bosom” or “in the chest area.” It is an ancient expression connoting intimacy, affection, or fellowship. There is an eternal fellowship and love shared between the Father and the Son within the Trinity. The Son dwells in perfect fellowship with the Father, knows the Father fully and exhaustively, shares the Father’s very nature and glory, and eternally enjoys the Father’s love. This is why the apostle immediately says that the Son “has made him known.” The Father has eternally loved the Son, and the Son the Father. The Son has eternally delighted in the Father, and the Father the Son. And the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son in the fellowship of divine love.
What we witness at Jesus’ baptism is that eternal fellowship breaking into history on the Jordan River, not three gods but one God in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Spirt, “the same in substance, equal in power and glory.”[15] And this revelation is remarkably pertinent to your life and mine, for our salvation itself is Trinitarian: What the Father ordained, the Son accomplished, and the Spirit applies.God the Father chose us before the foundation of the world, in love predestined us for adoption to himself as his children through Jesus Christ, and sealed every one of us with the Holy Spirit, the guarantor of our eternal inheritance.[16] God did not do this because we are worthy, or because he foresaw worthiness in us, but because the Father’s delight rests upon his Son, his delight rests upon you and me too. Let doubting hearts rest in this: If you belong to Jesus Christ, the Father no longer sees you as a sinner deserving of eternal judgment, but in his beloved Son, Jesus Christ the righteous, deserving eternal life.
And all of this, God reveals to us to the praise of his glorious grace![17] A right understanding of the Trinity is not merely about orthodoxy but worship. To behold God rightly is to bow before him, the Father who loved us, the Son who redeemed us, and the Spirit who dwells within us. So, let us praise the Lord: To the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be glory forever and ever. Amen.
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
(Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom34/calcom34.ix.iii.html
[3] 1 Pet. 1:19
[4] Matthew Henry, Ed. Leslie F. Church, Commentary on the Whole Bible: Genesis to Revelation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), 1213.
[5] Mark 1:10
[6] John 1:33-34
[7] Matt. 10:16
[8] Isa. 38:14; 59:11
[9] Lev. 1:14
[10] Matthew Henry, Ed. Leslie F. Church, Commentary on the Whole Bible: Genesis to Revelation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), 1213.
[11] Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 23, https://www.opc.org/sc.html.
[12] Rom. 8:26
[13] Rom. 8:14
[14] Donald Macleod, Shared Life: The Trinity and the Fellowship of God’s People, 30th Anniversary Edition (Fearn: Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 2024), 70.
[15] Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 6, https://www.opc.org/sc.html.
[16] Eph. 1:3-5, 13-14
[17] Eph. 1:6
Planter, Pastor, Preacher 