Matthew: Connecting the Covenants, Part 4 – Vipers and Yeshua’s Baptism

We left off in Matthew with crowds of people coming from all over Israel to hear John the Immerser and getting dunked in the river by him.

Enter the Jewish leaders – the Pharisees and Saduccees - who wanted to know what was going on down by the river.  John greeted them by calling them Brood of vipers.  (I used to think that brood just meant a bunch of something, but no... it means offspring or seed). If we go back to Genesis 3, to the first snake in scripture, we see that John was linking those leaders to the offspring of God's enemy, the serpent.

In Psalm 58:3-4, David confirms this idea: The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.  They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear.

Yuck! Is it coincidence that snakes
make so many people recoil?

The Jewish leaders were there for show, and to maintain their control over the people, but not for repentance.  John warned them to bear fruits worthy of repentance, and to flee from the wrath to come.  He declared that just because they were children of Abraham, they were not immune to the wrath of God that was coming. It was commonly thought back then that just because a person was Jewish, he was automatically a part of God's kingdom.

John then warned in verse 10, Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  In verse 12, he added, His winnowing fork is in his hand, and He will clear his threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.

What a pair of warnings!  And sandwiched into those warnings was John's declaration that there was a more worthy One coming after him (Yeshua) who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Listen to these words from Malachi 4:1 and see if you detect a similarity to John’s warnings – For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble.  The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says Yahweh of hosts, so that it well leave them neither root nor branch.

Yikes.

Matthew chapter 3 wraps up with the baptism of Yeshua. John knew that Yeshua had no need for a baptism of repentance and objected.  But verse 15 says, Yeshua answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”  Then [John] consented. 

Through His baptism, Yeshua identified with sinful man.  Isaiah 53:12b tells us, He was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Additionally, since baptism is a picture of a new beginning, it was totally appropriate for Yeshua to kick off His public ministry in such a Jewish way.

After His baptism, something happened. The very heavens opened up and the Spirit of God rested on Him like a dove, and a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

This didn’t happen with anyone else’s dunking.  It was a significant, supernatural occurrence.

I believe the mention of the dove here is significant.  In Hebrew, the word for dove is Jonah.  Jonah ran from God, jumped into a chaotic ocean, and landed in the belly of a fish. A dove brought back an olive branch to the ark. The connection of the dove to water in these cases is unmistakable, bringing ultimate peace out of the chaos.  Even today a dove is a symbol of peace.

There are ALWAYS doves nestling in the clefts of the Western Wall
in Jerusalem. It's like they are waiting for His return!

Yeshua’s ultimate purpose was and is to bring peace out of the chaos.