Great Commission Baptism and Infant Baptism Part 1

“Buried unto death in Christ, rise again to walk in newness of life.” – my pastor when I was baptized thirty-four years ago at the age of thirty-one.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” – Jesus Christ giving the Great Commission to His church in Matthew 28:19-20.

THE BEAUTIFUL PLAN – THE GREAT COMMISSION (MATTHEW 28:19-20)

Almost four years ago, on December 20, 2021, I had posted an article (Post #471) presenting the beautiful picture given to us by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20. In these two short verses, known as the Great Commission, Jesus instructs His church of their responsibilities in making disciples and thus in building His church to the end of the age. The picture is simple and elegant. First, the church is to proclaim the gospel “in Jesus’ name to all the nations” (Luke 24:47), “even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Those who respond in repentance and faith are to be publicly baptized as a testimony of their faith and are then to join themselves to a local church to be taught all that Jesus commanded. And this same pattern of proclamation-unto-faith and then baptizing and then training in righteousness is to continue through the church until the Lord returns. This is the basic blueprint for how Jesus is going to build His church (Matt. 16:18). The purpose of Post #471 was to reveal that blueprint and then display the beauty of Jesus’ disciple-making plan in operation in a local church. (It might be helpful to read that post before reading this one.)

BAPTISM OF DISCIPLES AT THE CENTER

At the very center of this Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20), this divine plan for making disciples of all the nations, is the command to baptize disciples. The risen Lord Jesus, to whom has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (28:18), commands His church to baptize disciples. This article will not take the time to explain the reason that Jesus commanded the baptism of disciples, but we will insist on the fact that Jesus commanded the baptism of disciples. The Lord of the church has told us to baptize (i.e., immerse) those who confess Jesus as Lord and our obedience to Jesus requires that we do so.

A DISTORTED APPROACH

Despite the unambiguous command in the Great Commission to immerse disciples, there are many in the Christian church who do not obey the Lord’s command regarding baptism but instead practice a man-made alternative. In this article (Post #719), I will critique one of these “other plans,” namely paedobaptism, which is more commonly known as infant baptism. We will see that ignoring the beautiful pattern that Jesus gave to His church in the Great Commission distorts the entire task of disciple-making. We will also see that an erroneous practice of baptism produces much confusion about salvation.

PAEDOBAPTISM (INFANT BAPTISM)

First, we consider the unbiblical way in which infant baptism (IB) is practiced. (NOTE: I will use the abbreviation “IB” when referring to infant baptism.) As we noted in Post #471, IB is a foundational practice in all Catholic churches and all Protestant denominations that descend from the Catholic Church. In this practice of IB, a minister of the church sprinkles a little bit of water on the head of an infant (or young child) being presented by its parents. After invoking the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the minister declares that the passive, unaware, and sometimes unconscious infant has now been “baptized” and is therefore a member of the church. All of this ceremony is done without the slightest participation by the infant and is done without any biblical warrant.

Now, regardless of how this practice of IB is justified by the church (and the ways of justifying the practice of IB vary widely between denominations and even within the same tradition or denomination), it should be observed that violence has been done to the Great Commission. The pattern for making disciples that Jesus gave His church in Matthew 28:19-20 was “Go and evangelize unto faith and salvation” followed by baptism followed by teaching by the church. But the pattern for the church that practices IB begins with something they call “baptism” and ignores or overlooks the critical starting point of the faith and salvation of the disciple. Having thus ignored Jesus’ prescribed pattern for making disciples (Matthew 28:19-20) and invented their own (Romans 10:3), the church is now also on their own for the other steps in the disciple-making process.

QUESTIONS RAISED BY IB IN THE CONTEXT OF MATTHEW 28:19

In Matthew 28:19, the risen Lord Jesus unambiguously commanded the baptism of disciples. But this command provokes significant questions for the church that “baptizes” (sprinkles) infants. For example, since Matthew 28:19 is explicitly about the baptism of disciples, we should ask the IB church, “Is the infant being presented for ‘baptism’ a disciple?” For if the infant is not a disciple, then, according to Matthew 28:19, this sprinkling-as-baptism ceremony is meaningless, for this is a ceremony which only baptizes disciples. But if, on the other hand, the infant is deemed to be a disciple by the IB church and is therefore eligible for “baptism” (sprinkling), we must ask, “How and when did they become a disciple?” Were they born as a disciple? If they were not born as a disciple, then the infant must have become a disciple between birth and their sprinkling ceremony, because, as we have already seen, Matthew 28:19 is only for the baptizing of disciples. What occurred between the infant’s birth and his sprinkling ceremony that changed him from not-disciple to disciple? There are other questions which could be mentioned here, but the main point is that the practice of IB raises many questions.

But as interesting as these questions are, of far greater significance are questions about how IB relates to salvation. In His Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20, we have already seen Jesus presenting the church with her task which begins with the church going (“Go, therefore!”) and proclaiming the gospel message so that some will call upon the name of the Lord and be saved (Romans 10:13-15). Thus, Jesus begins with salvation. Then those who “call upon the Lord” are the disciples who are baptized, and those disciples are then taught obedience in the context of the church. And the church is to be engaged in this task until the end of the age. The Lord’s plan is simple and clear: proclamation results in salvation which is celebrated in baptism which is then worked out with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-13) in the local church. Go-Baptize-Teach-Repeat. By this means the Lord Jesus will build His church (Matthew 16:18).

Next time we will see how infant baptism confuses and distorts the New Testament’s clear teaching on salvation as contained in the Great Commission.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 10/10/2025                 post #719

Isaiah 45:23 – Every knee will bow to Jesus

OVERVIEW. An exegesis of Isaiah 45:23 by considering other passages in Isaiah and passages in the New Testament about Jesus.

“I have sworn by Myself,
The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness
And will not turn back,
That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.”

Isaiah 45:23

The context of this verse is the LORD speaking to the “fugitives of the nations” (45:20). He calls them to gather themselves and come, draw near “you fugitives of the nations.” Who are these “fugitives of the nations?” Remember that “the nations” are the Gentiles. Consider also that “fugitives” calls to mind scattered aliens (1 Peter 1:1), those who are being “persecuted but not forsaken” (2 Cor. 4:9), fleeing from one city to the next (Matthew 10:23). These fugitives of the nations are the elect from among the Gentiles, those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Rev. 7:9), whom the LORD has called out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).

The LORD commands the fugitives to “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth” (45:22). Later Jesus says the same thing with different words: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). A connection between Isaiah’s prophecy and the first advent of the Lord Jesus is beginning to emerge.

Now looking at our theme verse, the LORD says, “That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.” But we also note that the apostle Paul quotes this verse in Philippians 2:10 and explicitly applies this to the Jesus. Every knee will bow to Jesus. Thus, Jesus is the LORD. Jesus is the one to whom all the ends of the earth must turn for salvation.

Peter declares in Acts 4:12, “There is salvation in no other name.” It is only the name of Jesus by which we must be saved.

So, the LORD says, “Turn to Me and be saved.” Peter says that Jesus is the one by whom we must be saved. Necessarily then, Jesus is the LORD and the name of the LORD is Jesus.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 6/13/2025                 #718

Thoughts on religion (Part 1): Satan’s purposes

OVERVIEW. An essay on religions. This article focuses on the purposes for which Satan has created religions.

“I must admit that I am doctrinally weak.” These were the words that Elisabeth said to me when I had mentioned that some of the beliefs of the Mormons were a bit strange. Elisabeth and I were dating at the time. She was a Mormon, having recently come into that group through her sister’s influence. Through a couple of Mormon “missionaries,” I was being exposed to this group’s teaching and found it pretty hard to believe. And so I made my comment to Elisabeth.

This anecdote serves as an introduction to a series of reflections I had recently about religions and about how these philosophes gain and then maintain their control over men and women. This article is a record of some of these reflections.

BASICS OF RELIGION

Before we get too far along, it will be helpful to establish some basics about religion. All religious systems are conceived by the prince of the demons and are brought into the world as Satan insinuates his ideas into the minds of sinful men.

THE PURPOSES OF RELIGION ARE TWO-FOLD. Since the fall in Genesis 3, when sin entered the world (Romans 5:12-14), all mankind has experienced two great problems from their sin: guilt and death. Religions are Satan’s response to these two great problems, because religions are intentionally designed to deceive people about their guilt from sin and to deceive people about death.

GUILT. One of the purposes of any religious system is to provide its adherents with a way to ignore their conscience so that their guilt is assuaged. Because all men have a conscience and because a complete copy of the Law is written on every man’s conscience (Romans 2:14-15), all people experience guilt every time they violate the moral Law of God. The only way to truly remove the guilt from your sin and to rid your conscience of its shame is by true repentance and by faith in the Lord Jesus. But religions are designed to provide a man-made counterfeit that pretends to remove guilt through man-made works and efforts or through man-made ideas with the result that the religious adherent is deceived into believing their guilt is no more.

DEATH. The second purpose of religious systems is to deceive their adherents regarding the nature of death.

When the LORD God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He warned the man with the most terrifying prohibition possible. The LORD God warned man by threatening death as the consequence of disobedience (Genesis 2:17). Death is the most severe threat man can experience. Thus, the threat of death should be the most terrifying threat to us.

But Satan is the deceiver of mankind. What the LORD God threatens for our good Satan twists so that we will be deceived. And so he said to the woman, “You surely will not die!” (Gen. 3:4). The talking snake convinced Eve that there was some wiggle room in what God had commanded. The snake was persuasive, so the woman was persuaded that the threat of death was not that bad. And, ever since, the serpent of old has been persuading fallen mankind that death is not really that bad and deceiving them that God does not really intend to destroy some of His creatures in the lake of fire. Religion is one of Satan’s primary tools for deceiving man about death.

OBSCURING CHRIST AND THE CROSS

To this point we have spoken of religion as Satan’s means of deceiving mankind about the peril of his situation before a holy God. When presenting the gospel to unbelievers, this explanation of religion as putting a veil over the realities of guilt (sin) and death can be a helpful introduction to proclaiming the atoning death of the Lord Jesus and how it solves our two great problems. So certainly, Satan has created religions for deception and distraction.

But there is an even more significant purpose for the invention of religious systems and philosophies. Satan’s primary purpose for religion is to obscure the cross of Jesus Christ and to remove the glory of the Lord Jesus. Consider 2 Cor. 4:3-4:

3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Paul expressly teaches that “the god of this world” (Satan) has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the glory of Christ. Satan hates Christ and he hates the cross and therefore his primary goal is to bury Christ’s triumph on the cross in the deepest depths of Sheol. Religion, consisting in fallen man’s pathetic and futile efforts to achieve his own righteousness, is Satan’s primary means for obtaining this goal. So, religion in all its myriad forms is never a way to gauge your goodness but is, in fact, the primary way Satan blinds your mind and obscures the cross of Christ, which is the only way of salvation (Acts 4:12).

In a future post I will continue my musings about religion and will consider the effects of religion on fallen man. We will also consider ancient religions and “next gen religions.”

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 5/22/2025                 #717

The LORD promises Abram a seed (Genesis 13:16)

OVERVIEW. A commentary on how Genesis 13:16 displays the physical seed and the spiritual seed of Abraham. Circumcision and baptism.

“I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.” Genesis 13:16

In this verse, the LORD is speaking to Abram and is repeating and confirming the promise which He made to Abram in Gen. 12:2-3. Also note that, in the original Hebrew, “descendants” is literally “seed.”

EXEGESIS / COMMENTARY

The LORD promises Abram that his descendants (literally “seed”) will be as numerous as the dust of the earth. This is a repetition of the promise the LORD made in Gen. 12:2 when He promised Abram that He would make him a “great nation.”

PHYSICAL SEED. Certainly this refers to a promise of many physical descendants. (As a side note, consider that at this time, Abram had exactly zero descendants and his wife was barren. The LORD likes to act  in the face of impossible odds! This is also a testimony to Abram’s faith, for he believed that the LORD’s promise would be fulfilled even when there was no human possibility. Romans 4:18-22; etc.) The LORD was promising Abram a multitude of physical descendants, and the Scriptures attest that the LORD fulfilled that promise in the Old Testament nation of Israel. But we also see that promise fulfilled today, for the modern nation of Israel lives in the land of Canaan and is a testimony to the LORD’s fulfillment of His promise given to Abraham of a physical seed which would dwell in the land “forever” (Genesis 13:15).

SPIRITUAL SEED. But the LORD’s promise here is not only of a physical seed, but this promise to Abram is also of a spiritual seed. As we examine the New Testament, we read that “it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham” (Gal. 3:7) and “if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise” (3:29). Thus we see that all believers are Abraham’s spiritual seed by faith in Jesus. Paul’s argument in Romans 4:11-16 is that Abraham is the spiritual father of circumcised believers and uncircumcised believers because of their shared faith in Jesus. Thus in Genesis 13 the LORD is promising Abraham that he will be the father “of a great multitude which no one could count” (Rev. 7:9) of spiritual seed.

SIGNS. To prove that the LORD kept His promise of a physical seed, He gave Abraham the covenant sign of circumcision and commanded that all male descendants of Abraham receive the sign of circumcision (Gen. 17). Circumcision marks the physical seed of Abraham.

And to prove that He kept His promise to Abraham of a spiritual seed, the Lord Jesus commanded that all disciples must be baptized (Matt. 28:19). Baptism marks the spiritual seed.

Since, regarding the physical seed, Hebrew males who did not receive circumcision “shall be cut off from His people” (Gen. 17:14), it follows regarding the spiritual seed that those who do not receive biblical baptism shall likewise be cut off from Abraham’s spiritual people.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 5/20/2025                   #716

Blood on the heavenly mercy seat, Part 1 (Hebrews 10:3-10)

OVERVIEW. The heart of the book of “Hebrews” is chapters 9 and 10 as the author describes the awesome work of Jesus, our High Priest, as He brings His blood into the heavenly holy of holies. This article examines Hebrews 10:3-7. A second article will look at 10:8-10.

The central doctrinal teaching of the book of “Hebrews” is the description of Jesus Christ’s work of atonement as our great High Priest, and that description reaches its climax in Hebrews 9:11-10:18. In this passage, the author of the book tells us in detail what God has done in Jesus’ incarnation to bring about the propitiation of the sins of His people. In two articles, we will examine 10:3-10 to understand how Psalm 40 also relates to this same theme.

The passage begins (10:3-4) with yet another illustration of how the priesthood and the sacrificial system under the old covenant failed to accomplish any cleansing or atonement from sin by virtue of the fact that the blood of sacrificial animals was itself impotent.

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

The author has already alluded to this flaw in the sacrifices under the Law in 9:23 when he taught that “the heavenly things” were not cleansed with the blood of animals but were necessarily cleansed with “better sacrifices,” which speaks of the blood of Christ. 

But we know that the impotent blood of bulls and goats offered on the annual day of atonement was never intended to take away sins. Rather, the sacrifices of the day of atonement were intended to be a reminder of sins (10:3). The sacrifices of Yom Kippur were made every year to remind the people that, although they obediently offered the sacrifices required by the Law, their sin remained. Their obedience to the Law’s demands did not atone for their sin, but instead the annual ordinance reminded them that an atonement which finally quenched the wrath of God and fully cleansed God’s people from their sins was yet future. Under the Law, the people were required to offer the blood of bulls and goats, but one day there would be “better sacrifices than these” (9:23) which would finally and fully atone.

What follows in 10:5-10 is a breathtaking explanation of how the words of David in Psalm 40, written a thousand years before the death of Christ on the cross, depict the necessity both of the Incarnation and of the cross, and show Christ’s perfect submission to the will of the Father by becoming the final and perfect sacrifice for sins.

Hebrews 10:5-10 (NASB 1995) is given in its entirety below.

5 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,

“Sacrifice and offering You have not desired,
But a body You have prepared for Me;
6 In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure.
7 “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come
(In the scroll of the book it is written of Me)
To do Your will, O God.’”

8 After saying above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have not desired, nor have You taken pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the Law), 9 then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. 10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

COMMENTARY. The Holy Spirit guides the author of Hebrews to this passage from Psalm 40 as he is making this precise point in his own argument. That is, by understanding the words of David in Psalm 40:6-7, we will see that, long ago, the weakness of the sacrifices offered under the Law had been declared and that the need for Someone to receive a physical body and then to do the will of God was likewise long ago announced.

In Hebrews 10:5-7, the author quotes from Psalm 40:6-8 where David gives a veiled prophecy about the necessity of the Incarnation. First, the psalmist declares that “sacrifice and offering You have not desired” (10:5) and “in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure” (10:6). These phrases speak of the weakness of the offerings of the Levitical priests under the Law, that these are not sufficient to atone for sin, they do not please God, and they do not satisfy His wrath against sin. The propitiation of sin must be accomplished with “better sacrifices than these” (Heb. 9:23).

But second, notice he also says, “But a body You have prepared for Me” (10:5). (Capitalization is mine.) This “body” is the flesh and blood physical body of the Lord Jesus, a body that was prepared for Him by God and that contained the blood that would atone for sin. Part of the necessity of the Incarnation was to provide the blood that the Messiah would sprinkle on the heavenly mercy seat (Hebrews 9:14, 23-26). So, a body was prepared for Jesus.

Third, the psalmist goes on to speak of someone who will come (“Behold, I come”) to accomplish the will of God (10:7). Again, this foreshadows the Lord Jesus in His incarnation as He perfectly submitted to the Father’s will (Philippians 2:5-8; John 17:4; Isaiah 53) to willingly offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin and “to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

SUMMARY. So, in Psalm 40 David tells of the failure of the sacrifices offered under the Law and also prophesies that a physical body is needed with better sacrificial blood to be sprinkled on the heavenly mercy seat. To fulfill this prophecy, Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, took on flesh in His Incarnation in order to become our great High Priest. He is the one who enters into the heavenly tabernacle to atone for all the sins of His people by sprinkling His own blood on the mercy seat in the heavenly holy of holies. Since Jesus’ own blood now stains the heavenly mercy seat, God’s wrath against the sins of His people has been forever quenched (propitiated) and wrath has been replaced by mercy.

The emptiness of Islam

POST OVERVIEW. A few years ago, a friend and I visited a mosque and had a cordial conversation with the imam there and a few adherents. Here are my impressions of that meeting (from my journal entry of that day).

We arrived at the mosque a little before the time for prayer ended and so were able to simply spectate for a few minutes. I had never been in a mosque and so was ignorant of how the “services” were conducted. It seemed to mostly consist of individual, silent prayer and reflection, which makes me hesitate to call it a worship service. Each person seemed to go through their prayers independent of others. At some point, the prayer time was concluded and the Muslims spread out a long tablecloth on the floor near the window, set plates on the tablecloth and ladled out generous portions of Middle Eastern food. Then they gestured to my friend and me to sit down on the carpeted floor so that we could join them in the meal.

My friend had been to the mosque before and had engaged the Muslims in dialog about Islam and Christianity. Although I was surprised at their willingness to dialog, it seemed that they expected our discussion to again be about matters of our respective religions. So, after some preliminary pleasantries, our discussion turned to various features of Islam and Christianity, picking up where the conversation had ended last time. And even though we came from very different points of view, our dialog never became heated or hostile. In fact, the Muslims seemed genuinely curious about the things that they heard from us.

In the course of our discussion, I was struck by the poverty of the theology in Islam. When we asked about forgiveness of sins, we received the reply, “Allah is merciful.” How does a Muslim get to heaven? “Allah is merciful.” If a person has been a good Muslim, can they be assured they will go to heaven? “Allah is merciful.” If a person has definitely not been a good Muslim, will Allah punish them? “Allah is merciful.” As I thought about that response, it occurred to me that Allah must be arbitrary and unpredictable if he gives the same response to the good and the bad alike.

In fact, based on this experience, Islam and the instructions of the Koran seemed shallow, inconsistent and illogical. The teaching was clumsy and scattered and would only be accepted by someone who was willingly self-deceived or by a person who had never read the Bible or heard any biblical preaching and so was ignorant of what truth was. There was no beauty, no elegance, no glory. There were no answers to the most basic of challenges. Ask a basic question about some aspect of Islam and your question will usually be met with a blank stare. To question or to think about any word from the imam or the Koran was not encouraged.

And thus it is with all man-made, Satan-designed religions. The beliefs and practices of these systems are crafted to ensnare the unsuspecting and the gullible and to trap them in a religion that requires them to constantly work and perform while promising them nothing. Their “holy books” are clumsy and, in many places, simply ridiculous. There is no cohesive doctrine. There is no definition of sin; in fact, in most religions there is rarely a mention of sin. There is no hero. There is no fall of man. There is no salvation. There is no warning to repent. There is no hell, so there is no salvation. There is no urgency, no eternal rest, no truth, no justice. There are no miracles; there is no resurrection; there is no worship. There is no forgiveness. There is no sacrifice. There is no conclusion, no hope, no peace, no grace. There is no Law. There is no righteousness. There is no glory. There is no point!

Ah, but in God’s holy Word and in the beauty and power of the Lord Jesus Christ there are all of these things and so many more. “For as many as are the promises of God, in Him (Christ) they are yes” (2 Cor. 1:20).

Since we have all the glorious promises of God to proclaim (1 Peter 2:9) and since we have been commissioned by the Lord Jesus Himself to be His witnesses (Acts 1:8), let’s be bold to tell those who are still in darkness of the joy and the forgiveness and the peace that is available to all those who will repent and believe in the Lord Jesus.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 12/23/2024                 #714

The gospel of Matthew series – Chapter 1:18-25

POST OVERVIEW. A commentary on the conception and birth of Jesus Christ as given in Matthew 1:18-25, emphasizing how these are utterly unique in human history and serve to separate Jesus from all of Adamic humanity.

Matthew 1:18-25. Jesus’ “ordinariness” abruptly ends with the end of His genealogy, for it is exactly in Matthew 1:18 that Jesus is separated from all Adamic humanity. For while Jesus, like every other human being who has ever lived (except Adam and Eve), began His earthly life by conception in a mother’s womb, His conception was completely unlike any other conception. Every other human being is conceived in the womb by the human seed of Adam, but Jesus is twice declared to be conceived by the Holy Spirit (1:18, 20). From this point in the gospel, Jesus will continuously be displayed as the unique Son of God.

1:18. “before they came together (i.e., had marital relations), she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit” (v. 18). Notice that ordinary human conception is explicitly ruled out. Jesus could not have been conceived in the ordinary way because Mary and Joseph had not known one another sexually. In Luke’s account of Jesus’ conception and birth, Mary asks Gabriel, “How will this be (i.e., her giving birth to Jesus), since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34). But “before they came together,” Mary was found to be pregnant. Well, how did that happen?

The Bible tells us how this humanly impossible event happened. We need not be in any doubt. The inspired Word of the living God tells us that there was (literally in the Greek) “found possessed/held in her womb by (or ‘from’) the Holy Spirit.” Jesus was conceived in Mary’s womb by the work of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity. Jesus, who is Himself God, was conceived in the human by God the Holy Spirit. There is immense mystery here as we consider how God could become Man, but there is no mystery or ambiguity as to how Jesus was conceived. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the virgin’s womb.

1:19. At this point in the narrative, we have information that Joseph does not. We know that the holy Child in Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but Joseph knows of no such possibility. Knowing only about ordinary conception, Joseph wants to send his adulterous wife away secretly and discretely. We can only imagine the emotions that Joseph must have felt when Mary was found to be with child “before they came together.” Embarrassment, anger, thoughts of being betrayed and deceived, disappointment, shock must have flooded his mind. “How could she be so cruel and unfaithful!”

1:20. Ordinarily, these feelings would have been completely justified. But remember, Jesus is no ordinary Man. Even at the very beginning of His human likeness, Jesus manifested His deity. At His conception Jesus was God. And now an angel tells Joseph in a dream about this Child conceived in Mary. “Joseph, son of David, Mary has not been unfaithful! The Child in her womb has been ‘begotten of the Holy Spirit.’” Consistent with the words of the Nicene Creed, “He (Jesus) became incarnate by the Holy Spirit.” Even in His human conception, Jesus is “God from God, true God from true God.”

1:21. The angel goes on to tell Joseph things about this Child which testify that He is the Anointed One (Messiah). “The Child will be a Son, whom you shall call Jesus.” “Jesus” is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name “Yeshua.” The meaning of the Hebrew name Yeshua is “Yahweh saves.” So the Child will be named “Yahweh saves.” But from what danger will Jesus save His people? “He (Jesus) will save His people from their sins.”

We must take a moment to consider the profundity of this small and simple sentence. We will do this in three steps. 1) He will save. 2) His people. 3) From their sins.

“HE WILL SAVE.” “Jesus will save.” But if God is sending His Son as a Savior, it must mean that there is some extreme danger from which people need to be rescued. If there were anyone else who could save people, then Jesus would surely have remained in heaven. But Jesus is sent because He and He alone is able to save from sins. 

“Jesus will save.” There is no mention of any other agent of salvation in this verse because there is no other Savior to mention. “There is salvation in no other name” (Acts 4:12). “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). “There is one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).

“HIS PEOPLE.” Jesus left the glories of heaven for the agonies of the cross in order to accomplish the mission given to Him by the Father, and that mission was to save His people from their sins.

INCLUSIVE AND EXCLUSIVE. To understand the significance of this, we need to see that His people is both inclusive and exclusive. It is inclusive because Jesus came to save all of His people. Every single member of the group called “His people” is saved by the finished work of Jesus on the cross. When Jesus died on the cross, He accomplished full atonement for all of His people. There is not a single one of Jesus’ people, from the Garden to the white horse (Rev. 19:11), for whom Jesus failed to propitiate their sins. Jesus’ atonement on Calvary’s cross included all of His people.

But we also need to understand that Jesus atoned for only His people. Notice that the angel of the Lord said, “He will save His people from their sins.” This means that Jesus came to die for a very specific group of people and He did not die for anyone else. Jesus will save all who are His people, but He will not save any who are not His people. His salvation is exclusive in that Jesus’ atonement excludes all those who are not His people.

Who, then, are “His people?” Who are the people for whom Jesus died? Whom did Jesus save by His death on the cross? “His people” must be that group known as God’s elect, those whom God sovereignly chose for salvation before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). By the singular act of His death on the cross, Jesus has “purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). So, the Son of God was conceived in Mary’s womb for the purpose of saving the elect.

“FROM THEIR SINS.” This Child will receive the name Jesus because He will save His people from their sins. Ever since Adam disobeyed the Lord and ate from the tree, all of mankind has lived under the condemnation of sin (Romans 5:12). “There is none righteous, not even one.” “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” “The wages of sin is death.” “The soul who sins will die.” And ever since Adam sinned, the question that mankind has sought to answer has been, “How can a man be in the right before God?” (Job 9:2). How is it possible for my sins that are scarlet to be made white as snow (Isaiah 1:18)? Can burnt offerings, thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil remove the guilt of my sin (Micah 6:6-7)? While no work or sacrifice can remove the guilt of even one sin, this One, this Jesus is going to save all His people from their sins. Jesus is the long-awaited Savior.

1:22-23. Matthew now comments on the words of the angel and declares that these events of the birth of Jesus took place to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah made 700 years before when the prophet said, “Behold, the virgin shall be with Child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14), which translated means “God with us.”

Perhaps no more spectacular prophecy exists in the Old Testament than this word from Isaiah that a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and that this Child will be God in human flesh, “God with us.” Virgins do not conceive children, and God does not become Man. But Matthew is testifying that the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem was the literal fulfillment of this entire prophecy in every detail. God the Son was conceived in Mary’s virgin womb.

1:24-25. Joseph proves to be a model of obedience and faith as he believed what the angel told him in the dream and obeyed what he was called to do. Thus “he took Mary as his wife and kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.”

SUMMARY – CHAPTER 1. We have presented Matthew 1 in two parts, one talking about His genealogy and one talking about His conception and birth.

First, in His genealogy (1-17), Matthew displays Jesus as the promised Davidic King, as the rightful heir of the throne of David and, therefore, as the King of Israel. Also, by tracing Jesus’ lineage back through forty-two generations, Matthew demonstrates that Jesus is the son of Abraham and the Son of David.

By His divine conception and virgin birth (18-25), Jesus is displayed as being the completely unique Son of God. Although He appears as man in His physical form, this Man is utterly separate from all Adamic humanity, a heaven-sent Savior who is “God with us.”

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 11/22/2024                 #713

My book, “The Resurrection,” is published!

Hey everyone! Exciting news! My second book has been published and is now available for purchase off the Amazon Website.

To purchase your copy, go to the Amazon Website and search based on my name (Roy Britton). This will be the first book listed. The book sells for $5.99.

Please buy your own copy then post a review of what you think of the work. Thanks!

(NOTE: I made a mistake when entering the information about the book and accidentally said the reading age for the book is 16-18 years. Anyone over the age of 16 years will benefit from reading the book. RMB)

The gospel of Matthew series – Chapter 1:1-17

POST OVERVIEW. A commentary on Christ’s genealogy in Matthew 1:1-17, tracing Jesus’ ancestors all the way back to Abraham through the kingly line of David.

Matthew 1:1-17. Matthew begins his gospel account by presenting the genealogy of Jesus. Ordinarily genealogies are not that exciting, but then this is no ordinary genealogy. While most of our genealogies would go back four or five generations covering 150 years, Jesus’ genealogy covers forty-two generations and approximately two thousand years.

WHY SUCH PRECISE RECORDS? Have you ever wondered why the Hebrews kept such remarkable genealogical records? Why would anyone keep track of ancestors back thousands of years? The answer is that the Hebrews kept these records so that they could validate or invalidate whether someone was authorized to take a role. For example, the only people who could ever become priests in the tabernacle (and later the temple) were males who were physically descended from Aaron. The only people who became kings in Judah were male descendants of David. Land in Israel was allocated based on your genealogical tribe, and so on. But by far the most important person to validate (or invalidate) by their genealogy was the promised Anointed One, the Messiah. The Old Testament contained many genealogical clues about the identity of the Messiah and He, when He came, had to fulfill all of them. Along these lines (pun intended), the Messiah must be able to track His lineage all the way back to Abraham through the line of King David. And we see that Jesus meets that criterion. So, Jesus satisfies the genealogical test for being the Messiah.

There is another very important fact that Matthew establishes by presenting Jesus as the product of a long line of Hebrews all the way back to Abraham. What is that fact? Jesus is a human being! Jesus is not an angel and He is not a myth. Angels and myths do not have genealogies. They do not have ancestors. But Jesus does. He is the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12:3, “And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” God promised Abraham that the Messiah would be one of his descendants. Jesus, then, is the Seed of Abraham through His genealogy. And Jesus is human.

ONE THING IS ORDINARY. Maybe the reason that Matthew begins his gospel with Jesus’ family tree is to show that there is at least one thing that is ordinary about Jesus – He has a genealogy. After Matthew 1:17 where the genealogy ends, we are hard-pressed to find a single detail of Jesus’ life that could be considered “ordinary.” From Matthew 1:18 on, nothing about Jesus is ordinary. So Matthew quickly dispenses with Jesus’ “ordinary” genealogy.

THE GENEALOGY ITSELF. Now we want to study the contents of the genealogy itself. We might think that the line of the Messiah would be pristine and would be star-studded, but if we thought that way, we would be wrong. Instead we find that Jesus’ genealogy is littered with sinners, people who are expressly revealed in the pages of Holy Scripture to be flawed and fallen. But this is exactly as it should be. Jesus’ family tree is composed of the types of people that He came to save. As we work our way through the forty-two generations, the best we best we find are a few individuals who are relatively a little better than the rest. Then we reach the end of the genealogy and suddenly encounter one who is completely unlike the rest. As we read the name “Jesus,” we can sense the curse of sin being removed. Finally, here at the end of the forty-two generations we read of our Hero, our Savior, our King.

Matthew begins his lineage of Jesus by mentioning David and Abraham. One of Matthew’s themes in his gospel is that Jesus is the promised Davidic King, so he mentions that Jesus is the son of David. (We will see that “Son of David” is also a messianic term that several people use when calling out to Jesus in this gospel.) But Jesus is also the son of Abraham, meaning that He is as Hebrew as He can be and He is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.

We won’t cover every person in the list, but some are of special interest. Tamar is the mother of Perez and Zerah and Judah is the father (v. 3). This is scandalous because Tamar is Judah’s daughter-in-law (Gen. 38). A little farther down (v. 5) we encounter Rahab, the prostitute from Jericho who protected the Hebrew spies (Joshua 2). A Canaanite prostitute in the line of the Messiah? Then there is the widow Ruth, a foreigner from Moab, who is redeemed by Boaz (Ruth 4) and thus is added to the messianic line. When we reach to David, the anointed king, we discover that David’s son Solomon was born by Bathsheba, “her of Uriah,” whom David stole from Uriah through adultery and murder. The lineage then weaves its way through the kings of Judah, both noble and wicked, past the deportation to Babylon and through a number of unknown men before arriving at “Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah” (v. 16).

From the genealogy, then, we see that Jesus is the human descendant (or “seed”) of Abraham through the kingly line of David. Up to this point in the gospel, Jesus is presented as a fairly ordinary Person who has a slightly unusual family tree, but really nothing more. But that “really nothing more” is about to profoundly change. (Next post, Jesus’ conception and birth, Matthew 1:18-25.)

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 11/11/2024                 #712

The gospel of Matthew: An overview to the series

POST OVERVIEW. An introductory overview to the commentary on the gospel of Matthew.

In the last several months, I have been reading through the gospels, including repeated readings through “Matthew.” The frequency of the readings over a short period of time has revealed to me some new and fascinating insights into the life, death and resurrection of our Lord, and I am hoping to publish a series of posts about those insights. As we begin this series of posts, it would be good to make some broad observations about Matthew and set some expectations about what we will discover.

OBSERVATIONS

AN EXTRAORDINARY MAN. One of the things that we notice about the gospel of Matthew (and it is probably true of all the gospel accounts) is that every scene with the Lord Jesus portrays something that could only occur with Jesus. That is, no encounter with Jesus is ever ordinary. In every instance, the action that takes place or the conversation that occurs or the teaching that Jesus does testify to His being utterly unique and in no way like the ordinary people whom He encounters. Mere mortals circle around Him and say and do things that mere mortals say and do. We recognize these actions and words as those of ordinary children of Adam because we are also ordinary children of Adam and we, like them, are beset with the same feeble imperfections.  Whether the people are higher or lower on the human scale of things makes no difference. When ordinary people are in the same space as Jesus, it is blatantly obvious that Jesus is from another realm. He is the One who is completely other. Even though the other characters in the gospel have the same general appearance as Jesus, it is evident that sharing a similar appearance is where the similarity ends. Jesus’ regal other-ness is one of the features of Matthew’s gospel that we will emphasize as we progress through the book.

AN EMPHASIS ON HEALING. Perhaps more than any other gospel, Matthew highlights Jesus’ healing ministry. From the very beginning of His ministry into His passion week, Jesus is actively involved in healing all those who come to Him. And regardless of the disease or demon-possession or even death, Jesus never fails to heal all who come to Him. We will be sure to note this as we make our way through the gospel and seek to determine why Jesus heals so many.

JESUS AS THE PROMISED DAVIDIC KING. The gospel of Matthew has a decidedly Jewish feel and is thought to have been written with Jewish people in mind. One of the characteristics of the Jews of the first century was the anticipation of the soon-appearing Messiah, the Anointed One. For the Jew, the Messiah was expected to be a warrior-king like David who would re-establish Israel as the chief of the nations. Matthew presents Jesus as the long-awaited Davidic King, but not the King that the Jews anticipated. As we read through “Matthew,” we will be alert for those times when Jesus is presented as the promised King.

JESUS TEACHES HIS DISCIPLES. This gospel record has several long discourses in which Jesus teaches His disciples. In Matthew, Jesus trains His disciples for the ministry that they will be expected to fulfill as His followers after He has ascended to heaven. Therefore, He gives instruction about the characteristics of a true disciple, about the real meaning of the Ten Commandments, about prayer, about overcoming anxiety, about the kingdom of heaven, about forgiveness and about the end of the age and His return, among other topics. His teaching is meant to prepare His disciples for their role as His witnesses in the world.

EXPECTATIONS

The apostle Matthew did not write his gospel account of the ministry of Jesus Christ to simply be a biography about a man that he greatly admired so that others could also admire Him. Instead, Matthew writes about a Man who said things that no one else has ever said, who did things that no one else has ever done, and who lived among men as one who in every way manifested Deity. Matthew gives us an eyewitness account of Jesus’ teaching, His compassion and His character. The gospel writer documents Jesus’ predictions of His own death and resurrection and then reports how these predictions were fulfilled exactly by His death on Golgotha and His resurrection on the third day. In short, Matthew tells us the amazing story of Jesus so that his readers will see that Jesus is the Messiah and the Davidic King.

As we progress through this gospel record, then, we expect to frequently read things that lead us also to believe this Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. We expect Matthew to give us clear, objective evidence whose only explanation is that Jesus is the heaven-sent Davidic King.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 11/4/2024                   #711