Jesus’ baptism
Bible Study Notes John 1.29-34 w/c 10 January 2021
STARTER
If this is your first meeting in 2021 you might like to start by reflecting on your experiences over Christmas – both personal and church. Did you find any of the church services/events helpful or encouraging? If so, why not contact the staff team and tell them! We all need encouraging from time to time.
Has anyone been baptized by total immersion? If so, encourage them to say a little about that experience. Probably most people were baptized in infancy and have no recollection of what happened. If that is the case, do you think your parents fully appreciated what they were doing – or was it just “the done thing” at that time?
STUDY
It is worth noting that John’s Gospel does not tell the story of Jesus’ baptism like the other three Gospels. Instead it tells us what John the Baptist finally realised when Jesus came out of the water – as John saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus he knew he was the Son of God (34). To John’s credit he quickly took a step back, out of the limelight, so that Jesus could become centre-stage. The bridegroom gets noticed; the best man gets forgotten (3.29-30).
Read the passage (John 1.29-34)
Why did Jesus, the holy one, need to be baptized by John?
Some suggestions:
1 to identify Jesus as the Son of God from the very start of his public ministry.
2 To signify Jesus’ total commitment to the Father’s will.
3 As a “visual aid” for what was to come. Jesus, as with others being baptized, would have been “buried in the water” before rising to new life. Jesus was to die on the cross for the sins of the world before rising to new life.
What do you think John meant when he called Jesus “the Lamb of God”?
Some scholars have argued that John was thinking of the warrior lamb of first-century Jewish apocalyptic writing, a figure of immense strength, who (in Rev 5.6) is an image of the Lord Jesus Christ. However, it is almost certain that the sacrificial aspects of the “Lamb” would also have been in John’s thinking.
John called for a genuine repentance in his preaching, and he would have anticipated the Messianic coming, offering a more profound atonement for sin.
John’s father, Zechariah, was a priest so he would have been very familiar with the practice at the Temple when each morning and evening a lamb was sacrificed for the sins of the people.
Can you think of any biblical pictures which come to mind when thinking about the “Lamb”?
Hint: Abraham and Isaac (Gen 22.8, 13), The Lamb led to the slaughter (Is 53) for the sins of the people, Passover Lamb (Ex 12)
Note that the Lamb is provided by God (as in Gen 22) – it is a gift, there is no way we can provide for our own atonement.
“There is no sin too heinous, no wickedness too terrible, no habitual failure too often repeated, that it cannot be ‘taken away’ by Christ, our heavenly Lamb.” (Bruce Milne). Do you agree with this? If so, you might like to take a moment, as a group, to offer thanks to God for sending Jesus, the Lamb of God to take away each of our sins.
SIN is serious to our holy God – so serious that it requires a costly payment, the death of Jesus on the cross. Think for a moment: do we treat sin seriously enough, or do we take the fact that “God will forgive” too readily? Whenever I sin, I am responsible for putting Jesus on the cross all those years ago.
John witnessed that Jesus was the Messiah, the one who is anointed by the Spirit (32-33). But note that Jesus also dispenses the Spirit to his disciples. John baptized people into a readiness for the coming of the Messiah; in the New Testament church, baptism initiated people into the family of God (Acts 2.41; Gal.3.26). So what does it mean to say that Jesus is the “Baptiser with the Spirit”?
Jesus is the one through whom we are initiated into God’s kingdom as we receive the Holy Spirit; as we are “born again” (Jn 3.4). Baptism by John (a public event very likely by total immersion) would have been a special experience for those who underwent it. We receive the Spirit (and the gifts of the Spirit) in many and varied ways – there is no “one size fits all” model! Gifts are gifts – we can in no way obtain them by our own efforts.
PRAYER
Spend some time praying for the new church initiatives coming our way in the next few weeks – and for our church leaders as they continue to grapple with the impact of Covid-19 on the life of our church and witness.
And also some time for the roll-out of the vaccine and the impact of Brexit on trade between the UK and EU.
And then you might like to share individual prayers and concerns at this time. If you do pray for particular things, make sure someone makes a note of them so you can look back and see where God has been at work. We tend to be better at asking that we are at thanking!