Question 4
The Correct Answer Is: FALSE
Matthew 3:13-17: "13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. 14 And John tried to prevent Him, saying, "I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?" 15 But Jesus answered and said to him, "Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he allowed Him. 16 When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.""
Hebrews 4:14-16: "14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
John the Baptist was the prophet who directly preceded Jesus, in fact, the scriptures say that he prepared the way for Jesus. Part of this preparation was exposing the people's sins and their need to repent of those sins and turn back to God. The method John preached for doing so was baptism, immersion in water for the remission of your sins. The water itself did not remit sins, God did. But he did so, when one repented of their sins, and obeyed Him in faith. In order for someone to be baptized then, they must repent of their sins, which means that one must have sin to repent of. And such is true for every human being. Everyone that is, except Jesus. For Jesus to be able to pay the price for sin, he must not have had any sin Himself, or he would be in need of the sacrifice too. But in order for Jesus to truly be sinless, he must have been tempted to sin, but chosen not too. Matthew records that Jesus was tempted of the Devil and the rest of the Gospels would show that these temptations occurred at various times throughout his ministry. This begs the question then: if Jesus had no sin, why was he baptized? Jesus said in Matthew 3:15 that it was to fulfil all righteousness. God commanded baptism of all. Jesus thus was going to submit to the will of the Father in order to provide us an example of what full submission looked like.