Day 31

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, 'Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!' John 1:29

John was baptizing people from all over the land who were repentant and looking for forgiveness. One day, at the Jordan River, Jesus joined the lineup of people, waiting to be baptized. We know from Matthew's Gospel that this took John by surprise. Matthew writes, "John tried to deter him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?'" (Matthew 3:14). In other words, "If this is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, what are You doing standing in the line of sinners?"

Isaiah 53:12 says of Jesus, "He was numbered with the transgressors." This came to fulfillment on the cross, but it began at the outset of His ministry. Jesus took his place in a line of others being baptised, identifying Himself with their sin and the need of forgiveness. In taking the place of the sinner, he was looking ahead to what He later called 'a baptism that I am to be baptized with,' - His death, burial, and resurrection.

If he looked forward in his baptism to where he would take our place in death, we in our baptism look backwards to that same place. Jesus Christ stepped into the place we deserve, so that we might step into the place He alone deserves. His baptism looks forward to what He made possible, whilst our baptism looks back on what Christ made possible.

This is the great transaction of the gospel. He became what we are, so that we might become what he is. In the words of Paul, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5.21). As someone else has said, 'The secret of a changed life is discovering it is an exchanged life.' He became what I am, that we might become what we are. His baptism looked forward to the day he would die my death, and my baptism looks back to receiving his resurrected life on the basis of his death.