Church of the Holy City

The Mystery of Jesus’ Baptism

The Mystery of Jesus’ Baptism
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
January 11, 2015

Genesis 1:1-5 Mark 1:4-11 Psalm 29

We read about the baptism of Jesus, and we know the story about how the Holy Spirit descended upon Him, and the heavens opened and God proclaimed Jesus His Son. We know this story so well that a great question may elude us. As I pondered this reading, it struck me: “Why did Jesus need to get baptized?” Jesus was God on earth, would God need to be baptized?
The answer to this question gets at the heart of Swedenborg’s theology. We believe that Jesus had a fully human nature, and that He had to grow up and develop the same way that humans do. He was born a baby, He grew and formed His mind by learning, and He even needed to be reborn, as we do. Swedenborg says,
. . . that the Lord might make the human Divine, by the ordinary way, He came into the world; that is, it was His will to be born as a man, and to be instructed as a man, and to be re-born as a man; . . . the regeneration of man is an image of the glorification of the Lord (AC 3138).
We all know that Jesus was fully God and fully man. The ancient Creed of Athanasius states this:
For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; . . . Perfect God; and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood. Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by assumption of the Manhood by God. One altogether; not by confusion of Essence; but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man; so God and Man is one Christ.
I think what never occurred to me was just how human Jesus really was. And Jesus being baptized is an example of how human Jesus was.
Jesus’ baptism was the start of His ministry. And we know little of Him before that. But we do know that Jesus didn’t spring fully grown into the world. Luke tells us that he developed as we develop. “And the child grew and became strong . . .” (Luke 2:40). Luke tells us further that Jesus learned the Bible as we learn the Bible. When Jesus’ parents lose Him on a trip home from Jerusalem, they find Him in the temple learning from the teachers,
they found Him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:46-47).
I find it striking in this Luke passage that Jesus is listening to the teachers. We are so accustomed to Jesus teaching others during His ministry, it is striking that Jesus Himself had to learn the Bible. So, here, we find Him listening to the teachers and asking them questions.
This far, I think Jesus’ development makes sense. But the baptism issue raises Jesus’ development to a higher level. Swedenborg makes the striking statement that Jesus needed to be reborn as a man. The humanity of Jesus wasn’t perfectly divine during Jesus’ life. Like us, Jesus needed to be reborn.
For us, baptism is symbolic. Baptism symbolizes regeneration, or spiritual rebirth. But the baptism itself does not wash away our sins. We are not reborn immediately upon being baptized. Rather, spiritual rebirth takes place as we look at ourselves and make changes. We put off old ways of behaving, feeling, and thinking, and put on new ways. We put off our worldly self and put on a heavenly self. Jesus did something similar to this. He put off the humanity He received from Mary, and put on the Divine Humanity from His divine origins.
This is one of the hardest aspects of Swedenborg’s theology for me to understand. What was this human from Mary that Jesus “put off,” and what was this divine human that Jesus “put on?” I don’t understand the transition from the Mary humanity to the Divine Humanity. This idea is all through Swedenborg’s theology. One clear statement about it is in AC 2159,
The Human with Him was from the mother, and thus infirm, having with it from the mother a hereditary nature, which He overcame through combats of temptations and utterly expelled, till it had nothing left of the infirm and hereditary nature from the mother–indeed, at last not anything whatever from the mother (AC 2159).
In this passage from Swedenborg, we see the idea of hereditary evil. We are all born with tendencies to evils of different kinds. These are only tendencies, though. We don’t have to act on them and make them part of our personality. Jesus also had tendencies to evil from his mother, Mary, as every human does. For us, hell acts upon these tendencies, trying to make us fall into them. For Jesus, all the hells descended upon Him, with all the sin of the whole human race, which Jesus resisted all His life. The Bible tells us that Jesus was tempted,
The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts (Mark12-13).
Jesus’ temptations are recorded in greater depth in Matthew 4 and Luke 4. In Luke the temptations end with an intriguing line, “And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). Luke suggests that the temptations after the baptism weren’t all of them. The devil would return at an opportune time.
But this doctrine of Jesus’ two natures answers a difficult question for Christians. I often hear people ask, “Who did Jesus pray to if He is God?” This is a difficult question. We know that there is only one God. And as Christians we know that Jesus is God. Yet we see Jesus praying to God. We believe that when Jesus prayed to God as an activity He did so when He was in the humanity from Mary. We can call this the human humanity. This humanity was like our humanity. It was susceptible to temptation. It had all the feelings and parts of the mind that we have. When Jesus was in the humanity he received from Mary, He prayed to God as if to someone else. So Swedenborg explains, “when as yet He had the infirm Human with Himself, He adored Jehovah as another than Himself” (AC 2159).
So Jesus did need to be baptised. Jesus did need to be reborn. Jesus did need to put off the humanity he received from Mary and put on the Divine Humanity from His Divine origins. This process is called glorification. We follow a similar path. Our path is called regeneration. We put off our natural humanity and put on a humanity from God. Jesus put on the Divine Humanity from His own soul, which is Jehovah God. We put on a spiritual humanity from God as a kind of grafting, or implanting. Jesus put on His Divine Humanity, not by a grafting, but by filling His human form with His Divine Essence.
When Jesus had put off everything from Mary, He was fully united with Jehovah God. At that time, as the Athanasian Creed says,
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man . . . Perfect God; and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. . . . For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man; so God and Man is one Christ.
This is the Divine Human Jesus Christ that we worship. With every mortal thing expelled from His person, Jesus is now risen and one with His Divine origins. Now God and Man is one Christ.

PRAYER

Lord, we are amazed at the miracle of your incarnation. You took on a human form, and lived a human life, as we live a human life. You grew up from a baby to adulthood. You learned the Bible, as we learn the Bible. You were baptized as we are baptized. You were reborn, as we are reborn. You have showed us the way to live to come to you in eternity. Give us insight into our lives so that we can see your path in our hearts. Give us, we pray, the strength to live as we see your pathway illumined in our hearts. May we grow into deeper and deeper love for you, and live a more holy life by your grace.

And Lord, we pray for the sick. May they experience the power of your healing love. Fill them with the grace of your healing power. Comfort their family and friends. We pray for the grace of your healing power for all who are ailing in body or soul.