Subject 13 : The Gospel According to MATTHEW
[Chapter 8-1] The Healing of Spiritual Lepers (Matthew 8:1-4)
(Matthew 8:1-4)
“When
He had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. And
behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Lord, if You are
willing, You can make me clean.’ Then Jesus put out His hand and touched
him, saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’ Immediately his leprosy was
cleansed. And Jesus said to him, ‘See that you tell no one; but go your
way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses
commanded, as a testimony to them.’”
They
say that a leper hardly feels any subjective symptoms of leprosy until
three years have passed since the virus first infected him. But from the
fourth year, some objective symptoms appear slowly. And it takes three
more years that he can no longer hide his infection from others, as its
symptoms are fully revealed. This is the nature of leprosy.
Today’s
scriptural passage describes Jesus’ healing of a leper. The event
described in this passage actually happened, and through it, God is
revealing the nature of our sins, and He is also telling us the truth
that He has completely solved this problem of our sins.
The
leper in today’s passage did not hide himself but came before Jesus as
he wanted and asked Him to heal him, for he earnestly longed to be cured
from his illness. This leper had faith that Jesus could heal any
diseases, and that no one else but Jesus could cure him from his illness
and make him clean. Jesus saw the faith of this leper and He fulfilled
his wish, the same as in the case of the centurion later. We have to
keep in mind here what Jesus really wanted to heal was not the physical
illness per se, but the disease of sin.
Leprosy,
here, indicates that in our hearts and bodies, there are sins that are
just like this disease. From the very moment we were born from the wombs
of our mothers, we were all born with 12 diseases of sin. When we were
just babies, we did not realize that we were such wicked sinners, but
once we grew up to a certain age, we came to realize our true selves,
and we could not hide this from God. Then, we came before Jesus in
faith, and said to Him, “If You are willing, You can wash me clean from
all my sins.” This is how you and I have received the remission of our
sins. When we have such faith that Jesus can heal us from all our sins,
we can withstand any embarrassment.
Did
Jesus heal this leper at once, or did it take more time for Him to heal
him? The Bible says that Jesus healed him all at once. You must
therefore realize that Jesus has not healed you from your sins in
several steps, but He has healed you once and for all through the gospel
Word of the water and the Spirit.
A
woman suffering from a hemorrhage was healed and the fountain of her
blood was dried up all at once when she touched Jesus’ garment by faith
(Mark 5:25-34). Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Syria,
was also healed from his leprosy at once when he obeyed God’s Word by
faith (2 Kings 5:1-14), and the leper in today’s passage, too, was
healed at once as soon as Jesus’ hand touched him. If we only have faith
in the Word of God, then we can all come to know and believe in the
power of salvation that has made all our sins of mankind disappear, and
by this faith, we can all receive the everlasting remission of our sins
once and for all. Everyone’s disease of sin can never be healed step by
step, but it is cured all at once by faith in His Word.
The Difference in the Faith of the Religionists And That of Those Who Believe in the Power of the True Gospel
The
difference between the religionists and the people of true faith is
this: The religionists, because of their ignorance of the truth,
mistakenly think that they can be remitted from their sins by saying the
prayers of repentance everyday, even as they dwell in sin day after
day, but in contrast, the believers of the gospel of the water and the
Spirit are now living amidst God’s blessings as His own children by
having been absolved from all their sins once and for all.
The
Bible clearly declares that everyone can be saved from all his sins
only by faith in His Word. If we could have solved our heart’s problem
of sin on our own, through such means as our own strength, our own
works, our own prayers of repentance, and our own virtuous deeds, there
would have been no need for Jesus to come to this earth. And if we could
have solved the problem of sin through such efforts, we would never
have been able to meet Jesus during our entire lifetime.
No
one can solve the problem of his sins on his own, no matter what he
does and how hard he tries, and the key for the solution is found only
in believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Humans are such
beings that cannot avoid but commit sin no matter how hard they try not
to, and therefore they must instead believe in the gospel of the water
and the Spirit. If one realizes clearly that the prayers of repentance
can never make his sins disappear, and that thus he cannot solve the
problem of his sins all by himself; if he instead comes before God and
confesses to Him that he is a grave sinner; and if he believes in the
gospel of the water and the Spirit, then there is no sin whatsoever that
cannot be washed away. When sinners come before Jesus and ask for His
mercy, Jesus will surely solve away all their sins once and for all
through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, just as He had healed
the leper all at once.
It
is when our true selves are fully revealed before God as sinners and we
desire the salvation of Jesus that the Lord remits away all our sins by
giving us the gospel of the water and the Spirit. You need to realize
that only those who ask for God’s mercy, saying, “Lord, have mercy on
me. I cannot but go to hell because of my sins,” can be delivered from
all their sins and become His own children. For all sinners, when they
admit their fundamental selves as sinners and ask the Lord for His
mercy, God will bestow the everlasting remission of sin that He has
already fulfilled through the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Romans
3:10 says, “There is none righteous, no, not one.” With this passage,
the Apostle Paul referred to those who have not yet received the
remission of their sins. It was to make sinners perfectly sinless and
turn them into God’s children that Jesus came to this earth. But
unfortunately, most Christians are still found to be the half-sinners.
Though in this world there may be half-remission of sin or the
half-righteous people, in the Kingdom of God, there are no
half-righteous people, nor half-sinners. Who are the half-sinners? They
are those who try to be forgiven form their sins by saying the prayers
of repentance everyday. It is not by giving such prayers of repentance
that all our sins are blotted out, but by believing in the gospel Word
of the water and the Spirit.
Jesus
is the One who has completely healed mankind from their diseases of
sins with the gospel truth of the water and the Spirit. Jesus did not
differentiate between original sin and personal sins when He spoke of
sin, and He did not approve the faith of those who believe that although
Jesus took away their original sin, they must be forgiven of their
personal sins through repentance. Those who believe so are hurting God’s
heart and will be destroyed, for they will remain and live the rest of
their lifetime as sinners.
God
does not accept such half-faith. If one believes in Jesus, then he must
believe in Him 100%; alternatively, if he does not believe in Jesus,
then he does not believe 100%. There is, in other words, no such a thing
as 50% faith. What is the so-called “the doctrine of justification”? It
is ‘the credo of being regarded as righteous by faith’―that is to say,
they believe that Christians can be called to be righteous because of
their faith in Jesus even though they still have their sins intact. What
a nonsense it is! Our Lord does not approve a sinful man as sinless
just because he believes in Jesus. When we come to know the gospel of
the water and the Spirit from the Scriptures, we know that the Bible
tells us that once our Lord removed our sins from us and completely
blotted them out, all the sins of everyone have already disappeared.
What has thus washed away our sins is the baptism that Jesus received (1
Peter 3:21).
Generally
speaking, most of today’s Christian leaders say that Jesus took away
original sin, but we must be remitted of our personal sins separately by
giving our prayers of repentance. The Bible, however, does not
differentiate between ‘Sin’ and ‘sins,’ in other words, original and
personal sins. Before Jesus, all sins, both great and small, whether
original or personal, are equally manifested as ‘the sins of the world’
(John 1:29). Just as sewage water, tap water, and the water running in a
creek are all the same water, all sins are the same sins of the world.
As it is written in the Bible, “They are blind leaders of the blind. And
if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch” (Matthew
15:14), because their leaders themselves have not been born again, they
do not know how to solve the problem of sin, and this is why they
believe in such groundless doctrines telling them God will forgive their
sins whenever they give their prayers of repentance.
Everyone Must Believe in the Power of the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit
What,
then, is the true repentance for the remission of sin? It is to turn
back from their flawed knowledge and mistaken beliefs and to believe in
what is right. Mankind’s sins cannot be forgiven just by asking the Lord
everyday to forgive them.
The
Lord says, “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of
God more than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). Our Lord Jesus came to this
earth out of His compassion for all the souls that are bound to hell for
their sins. The will of God the Father was to make the sinful beings
sinless through Jesus Christ, to sanctify them, and to thereby enable
them to take part in His Kingdom. This is why our Lord came to this
earth and completely fulfilled the will of the Father through the gospel
of the water and the Spirit.
Romans
6:23 states, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Though our God is the God of
love, He cannot avoid but send all those who have sin to hell, and His
love is to give the remission of sin to the believers of the gospel of
the water and the Spirit, so that He may dwell with them forever in His
Kingdom. God has given us, in other words, the gift of the remission of
sin that has turned us sinless.
Nowadays,
there are too many Christians who believe in Jesus on their own, in
whatever way they want to, all based on their own thoughts. Say that
someone is now standing before the Lord after spending his entire
lifetime in religious devotion and piety, faithfully offering tithes,
donating a lot of money to his church, regularly attending morning
prayer meetings, and so forth. He may say to the Lord exultantly, “Lord,
here I am. This sinner of so many iniquities now stands before Your
presence!” What would the Lord say to him then?
In
Matthew 7, Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father
in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not
prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many
wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew
you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” This is what our
Lord will say to him. Our God is neither the Father of sinners nor their
Lord, but He is the Father of the righteous and the Lord of those who
have been born again and received the remission of their sins. Even if
this man says to the Lord, “Lord, do you not know me? For You, I devoted
my entire life to testify as to Your name,” God will only say to him,
“How dare you pretend to be My son when you have sin. All that awaits
you is hell, you who practice lawlessness!”
Therefore,
what all sinners must do first is to believe in the gospel Word of the
water and the Spirit right now and receive the remission of their sins
by faith. This is the most beautiful and precious faith. The false
Christian leaders may gather all kinds of sinners who have not received
the remission of their sins into their churches. But can anyone really
call them as saints? How can there be a ‘sinful’ saint? Anyone who has
sin is not a saint, but merely a sinner. One can be called as a sinless
saint only after he has received the remission of sin by believing in
the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
It
is written in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of
knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you
from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your
God, I also will forget your children.”
The
beginning of all knowledge is to know God, and yet countless people are
unable to put down their flawed and deluded knowledge and are living as
hypocrites. This is why our Lord will say to them when the last day
comes, “I do not know you.”
The
only way for a sinner to become sinless is to believe in the Word of
the remission of sin. We must have faith in the Deity of the Lord as
well as our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. Yet
many people have instead ignored the power of the gospel of Jesus’
baptism and His Cross, wasting away their lives in their futile pursuit
of illusive incremental sanctification based on their fallacious belief
that they can be gradually cleansed from their sins.
Christianity
is not a religion where one is to reach his salvation through his own
effort and discipline, as Buddhists emphasize that one must try to be a
man of virtue and mercy. But, it is impossible for a human being to
become absolutely sinless no matter how hard he tries to be virtuous.
The true Christian faith is one that believes in the salvation of grace,
of the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which flows from above
without any human effort—that is, it is the faith that believes in the
love of God that has delivered us from drowning. Just as the leper was
immediately healed of his sickness by the love of our Lord and the power
of His truth, we, too, can also be saved from all the sins of our
hearts as soon as we believe in the power of the gospel of the water and
the Spirit and recognize our Lord’s love for us.
In the Old Testament, God Showed His Salvation through Moses
What
the Lord said to the leper after healing was this: “See that you tell
no one; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift
that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” The gift that Moses
commanded here refers to a lamb, that is, a sacrificial animal.
“Now
the LORD called to Moses, and spoke to him from the tabernacle of
meeting, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them:
‘When any one of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring
your offering of the livestock—of the herd and of the flock. If his
offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without
blemish; he shall offer it of his own free will at the door of the
tabernacle of meeting before the LORD. Then he shall put his hand on the
head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to
make atonement for him’” (Leviticus 1:1-4).
Regarding
the gift that Moses commanded, verse 2 above says, “You shall bring
your offering of the livestock—of the herd and of the flock.” By giving
the Law, God enabled mankind to realize that they are sinners, and then
through the sacrificial system of the Tabernacle, He gave the people of
Israel the statue that they should be remitted from all their sins by
passing them to such sacrificial offerings. God so loved us and wanted
to save us from our sins that He established the sacrificial system with
such offerings as lambs and bulls that would have to die in our place.
In
this sacrificial system, ‘the laying on of hands’ was very essential.
This meant “to pass over” or “to transfer.” When a man possessed by a
demon lays his hands on someone else, the latter equally turns into a
demon-possessed man, for the laying on of hands means “to pass on.”
Therefore, when a sinner of the Old Testament times laid his hands onto
the head of the sacrificial lamb, all the sins in his heart were passed
onto the animal (Leviticus 16:21). After that, he had to kill the lamb
to draw some blood, and then the priest took some of its blood with his
finger, put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and poured
all the remaining blood at the base of the altar. And the priest had to
burn the animal on the altar for a sweet aroma to the Lord. This was how
the Israelites received the remission of their sins during the Old
Testament times (Leviticus 4:27-31).
The
blood put on the horns and the base of the altar was the life for the
wages of sin. The Bible states that the life of the flesh is in the
blood, and that it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul
(Leviticus 17:11). The horns of the altar of burnt offering implied the
Books of Judgment (Revelation 20:12). Every transgression is to be
written on the Books. And the sinners will be judged according to their
works, by the things that were written in the books. This is why we have
to receive the perfect remission of our sins while we are living in
this world.
In
this New Testament age, then, by what kind of faith have we received
the remission of our sins? Where can we find evidence that we have been
saved from our sins? The evidence of our salvation from all sins can be
found only in our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit; it is
not through the visions, the ecstasies, or other tongues that we can
attain the confirmation of our salvation. Only by the Word of God can we
realize how we are sinners, and testify how we have been saved from all
our sins. This Word of testimony is the gospel Word of the water and
the Spirit.
“For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John
3:16). God the Father gave His only Son Jesus to save us from all the
sins of the world. How did He save us from sins? Jesus thus fulfilled
all the righteousness of God by coming to this earth, becoming our own
sacrificial offering like the sacrificial lambs and goats of the Old
Testament, actually accepting the iniquities of sinners onto His body
through His baptism, and thereby blotting out the sins of the world.
This truth was shown through the daily offerings of the Old Testament.
We must realize just how Jesus Christ accepted all the sins of mankind
that we commit everyday when He came to this world. Only then can we be
freed from all the sins of the world.
The Old Testament’s Offering of the Day of Atonement
Let
us now turn to Leviticus 16:29-34. “This shall be a statute forever for
you: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall
afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether a native of your own
country or a stranger who dwells among you. For on that day the priest
shall make atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from
all your sins before the Lord. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest for you,
and you shall afflict your souls. It is a statute forever. And the
priest, who is anointed and consecrated to minister as priest in his
father’s place, shall make atonement, and put on the linen clothes, the
holy garments; then he shall make atonement for the Holy Sanctuary, and
he shall make atonement for the tabernacle of meeting and for the altar,
and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of
the assembly. This shall be an everlasting statute for you, to make
atonement for the children of Israel, for all their sins, once a year.”
This
passage describes the offering of the Day of Atonement that God had
permitted to the Israelites for the sake of those who could not offer
sacrifices everyday, where the High Priest could give sacrificial
offerings once a year for the entire people of Israel. Through this
annual sacrifice, God had bestowed the blessing of the remission of
their yearly sins to the people of Israel.
Leviticus
16:6-10 states, “Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering, which is
for himself, and make atonement for himself and for his house. He shall
take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the
tabernacle of meeting. Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one
lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall
bring the goat on which the Lord’s lot fell, and offer it as a sin
offering. But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall
be presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, and to
let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness.”
God,
in other words, had given the sacrificial system that allowed the
Israelites to receive the remission of their sins through their faith by
passing not just their daily sins, but all the sins of the entire year
onto the sacrificial offering once and for all. Aaron here was Moses’
brother, and he was also the High Priest. Aaron brought one of the two
goats into the court of the Tabernacle and passed all the iniquities of
the people of Israel onto it by putting his hands on its head. Having
thus passed the Israelites’ sins onto the sacrificial goat all at once,
the High Priest then killed this goat, took its blood inside the
veil—that is, into the Most Holy—and sprinkled it on the mercy seat and
to its east for seven times. Even the High Priest could not enter inside
the veil unless he was atoned by laying his hands on of a sacrificial
animal and brought its blood with him.
The
Tabernacle was divided into the Holy Place and the Most Holy, and the
High Priest could enter into the place where God’s Ark of the Testimony
was placed only when he had the blood of the sacrifice that had received
the laying on of his hands. It was by seeing this blood of the
sacrifice that God permitted Aaron to enter into the Most Holy. So Aaron
killed the sacrificial goat that had accepted the sins of all the
people of Israel with the laying on of hands, took its blood into the
Most Holy, and sprinkled it on the Ark of the Testimony seven times. As
golden bells were attached on the hem of the robe of the High Priest,
they rang when he sprinkled the blood, and hearing this sound of ringing
bells, the people of Israel could confirm that the blood of the
sacrificial animal that had accepted their sins was indeed being
sprinkled, and thus reaffirming the remission of sin in the hearts of
the believers.
“And
when he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place, the tabernacle
of meeting, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat. Aaron shall lay
both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the
iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions,
concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and
shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man.
The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited
land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness” (Leviticus
16:20-22).
The
one goat that was “for Jehovah” was offered as a sin offering, by which
atonement was made. But the sins of the Israelites must also be visibly
banished from them, and therefore the High Priest also had to lay his
hands on the head of the other goat by confession of their yearly sins,
and then let it be “sent away for Azazel” into the wilderness (see
Leviticus 16:8-10 of the American Standard Version). Here the scapegoat,
‘azazel’ in Hebrew, means ‘to be set out’ for the total separation of
sin.
Taking
one of the two goats as the scapegoat, the High Priest laid his hands
on its head and passed all their sins to it by confessing over it all
the iniquities of the people of Israel as they were all watching outside
the gate of the court of the Tabernacle. It was then released into the
wilderness by the hand of a suitable man to die. This sacrificial goat,
in other words, was to shoulder all the sins of the Israelites that it
had accepted by the laying on of the High Priest’s hands, and it was to
die in the wilderness for sure. By the releasing of the scapegoat into
the wilderness, God had freed all the people of Israel from their sins.
This is the very sacrifice that God commanded Moses to offer. It was
through the laying on of hands and bloodshed that God had enabled all
the people of Israel to receive the remission of their sins.
The
sacrificial system of the Old Testament was one that taught the truth
that God would send Jesus, and that as His Lamb, Jesus would accept and
shoulder all the sins of every sinner living in this world through His
baptism, and that He would thus wash away all mankind’s sins, both of
their daily lives and their entire lifetimes. All the people of the Old
Testament believed that it was through the sacrificial system of the
Tabernacle that their remission of sin was brought to them. Now, the
people of the New Testament also have countless sins, whether committed
intentionally or unintentionally, and they need to find out how they can
solve the problem of these sins, and how they can be remitted from them
all.
The New Testament’s Offering of the Great Atonement
The
Old and New Testaments of the Bible match with each other (Isaiah
34:16). What part of the New Testament then matches with the Old
Testament’s offering of the Day of Atonement? Let’s examine what exactly
Jesus first did to blot out all our sins.
“Then
Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him.
And John tried to prevent Him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by You,
and are You coming to me?’ 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. 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. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘This
is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:13-17).
God
sent His Son Jesus as the One who “will save His people from their
sins” (Matthew 1:21). The One who had created the universe, in other
words, personally came to this earth through the Virgin Mary incarnated
in the flesh of a man as the Lamb of sacrifice. The ministry of Jesus
began with His baptism. By “then” in the above passage, it refers to the
year when Jesus turned 30. This was the year when Jesus was baptized by
John the Baptist.
Who
was John the Baptist? “Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of
women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who
is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days
of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence,
and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law
prophesied until John” (Matthew 11:11-13).
As
the above passage tells us, Jesus said that “among those born of women
there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist.” The one greater
than all the prophets on this earth, greater than Isaiah, Ezekiel, and
Elijah, and greater than even Moses, was none other than John the
Baptist, the representative of all mankind.
In
the Old Testament, the high priesthood was to be succeeded by one of
the male descendants of Aaron when he got to 30 years of age. Just as
the High Priest, Aaron’s descendant, had passed all the Israelites’ sins
to their sacrificial goat by laying his hands on its head, so did God
raise a representative of mankind called John the Baptist to pass their
sins onto Jesus, so that God could blot out all our sins of every
mankind living on this earth. God had sent John the Baptist to this
earth, in other words, as the last prophet. The last High Priest was
none other than John the Baptist, a descendant of Aaron.
“There
was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named
Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of
Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before
God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord
blameless.... He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of
Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the
disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared
for the Lord” (Luke 1:5-17).
God
had passed all the sins of the people of Israel on the Day of Atonement
only through the High Priests, the descendants of Aaron in the Old
Testament. Now, above passage shows that God chose a descendant of Aaron
in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, to pass all the sins of
everyone in this world as He had promised. That’s why He sent John the
Baptist to this world six months prior to Jesus to turn many to the
wisdom of the just and to make ready a people prepared for the Lord
(Luke 1:17). In other words, John the Baptist was the greatest of all
those born of women.
Like
this, God raised John the Baptist as the representative of mankind, and
it was through him that He passed mankind’s sins onto Jesus. John the
Baptist also came before Jesus as a witness; from the Word, we also need
to find out how John the Baptist bore witness. For the people of
Israel, it was because Aaron had passed their sins that they could see
the evidence of the fact that all their sins were indeed passed on.
Likewise, the fact that John the Baptist passed all our sins of mankind
to Jesus Christ is the very evidence that shows how our sins have been
blotted out.
As
mentioned before, and as shown in Matthew 3:13-17, Jesus was baptized
by John the Baptist. This baptism is very important to every Christian.
Christians have generally been baptized by water. However, they often
receive their baptism without even realizing its meaning. So baptism is
given to whoever promises to keep the Ten Commandments, and to
faithfully attend Sunday church services, and recognizes the Lord as his
Savior. In this world, even among Christians, it is extremely rare to
find anyone who truly knew the meaning of baptism when he was baptized.
Jesus
came to this earth and was baptized by John the Baptist; what we need
to realize here is why Jesus had to be baptized. Every Christian who
professes to believe in Jesus must ask, “Why did Jesus have to be
baptized, when He was sinless?” Yet those who have not received the
remission of their sins know nothing about this question, no matter how
fervently they might believe in Jesus. Only those who have received the
remission of their sins can give the correct answer to this question.
Jesus
is the heavenly High Priest while John the Baptist is the
representative of mankind, the earthly High Priest. John the Baptist had
the authority to pass all the sins of mankind to the Lamb Jesus, and
Jesus, as the High Priest of the Kingdom of God, was given the role of
blotting out all the sins of mankind by sacrificing His own body, not
the blood of animal, as their offering—that is, by accepting all the
sins of mankind and giving up His body to God as their sacrifice. The
High Priest of the Kingdom of Heaven is Jesus (Hebrews 5:10, 6:20,
10:9-14).
Jesus
said in Matthew 3:15, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting
for us to fulfill all righteousness.” He was baptized in the Jordan
River, the river of death. To baptize, ‘baptizo’ in Greek, means to
immerse, to submerge under water, to cleanse by dipping or submerging,
to wash, or to make clean by passing over filth. Therefore, baptism has
the same meaning as ‘the laying on of hands’ in the Old Testament. Just
as sins were passed with the laying on of hands, all our sins of mankind
were passed onto Jesus when John the Baptist baptized Him. It was
because all the sins of mankind were passed onto Jesus that He was
vicariously condemned in our place as our own sacrificial offering and
was buried. Like this, the very event through which Jesus accepted all
the sins of mankind from John the Baptist was none other than His
baptism.
It
was to fulfill all the righteousness of God to every one of us, and to
completely blot out all the sins of every human being, that Jesus came
to this world and was baptized. Do you think that Jesus was baptized
just because He was humble? This is not the case at all! Jesus said to
John the Baptist solemnly, “Permit it be so now.” When Jesus said this,
He meant, “You shall pass the sins of mankind to Me and I shall shoulder
them; what I must do is to remit away all mankind’s sins by becoming
your own scapegoat before your eyes,” for it was to take upon all the
sins of mankind that Jesus had come to this world.
People
are bound to hell because of their sins. They are agonizing with
worries because of their sins, and have been deceived by Satan because
of their sins. Jesus is the One who came to this earth to save such
people like us from our sins, to make us righteous, and to turn us into
God’s own children. When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and came
out of the water, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him from Heaven like a
dove and testified that He was the Son of God. The Holy Spirit was the
One who bore witness to the Truth. God the Father Himself testified that
His Son Jesus accepted all the sins of mankind once and for all by
being baptized.
“For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” That God
sent Jesus to this earth, passed all the sins of mankind to the Son, and
sacrificed His Son to give us eternal life and make us sinless—none
other than this is the significance of the very event of baptism.
Through His baptism, Jesus accepted our sins from John the Baptist, the
representative and the last High Priest of mankind, was immersed into
the water (signifying His death), and then came out of the water
(signifying His resurrection). Through this baptism, a form of the
laying on of hands, John the Baptist passed our sins to Jesus. The sins
of the world, in other words, were actually removed from mankind to God
Himself.
It
is because the sins of mankind were actually passed onto Jesus that God
says that we are now without sin. Had Jesus not taken away all our sins
when He came to this earth, then regardless of how much we believe in
Him, we would have had no choice but to remain as sinners. Having
blotting out all our sins through His baptism and bloodshed, God
admonishes us, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you and your house will
be saved”(Acts 16:31). By believing in the baptism and blood of Jesus,
we must be washed from all of our sins once and for all.
“The
next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29) John the
Baptist continued to shout to the people that the sins of all mankind
were all passed onto Jesus through His baptism. The one who shouted, “He
is the very Son of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the
world,” was none other than this John the Baptist.
Jesus
shouldered the sins of the world by being baptized and carried them to
the Cross. About 1,975 years have passed since the time Jesus took away
the sins of the world. Jesus who took upon the sins of mankind had to
give up His life on the Cross. Jesus took upon all the sins of the
world. Through His baptism, Jesus took away the sins of our fathers and
mothers also, for they, too, are the people of the world. All the sins
that we commit from our birth to our death, whether committed
intentionally or unintentionally, belong to the sins of the world. These
sins were also passed onto Jesus through the laying on of the hands of
John the Baptist. The sins that we had committed in our teen years are
also the sins of the world, and so they, too, were passed onto Jesus.
Jesus, in other words, did not just take away the sins of a few special
people, but through His baptism and bloodshed, He took away all the sins
that everyone in this world commit throughout his entire lifetime until
his death, and washed them all away.
However,
only those who believe in the gospel truth of the water and the Spirit,
that Jesus accepted our sins through John the Baptist and has remitted
them all away, can receive the remission of their sins by this faith.
They are the only ones who can be saved from all their sins by faith.
But, unfortunately, most people still remain imprisoned by their sins
because they do not believe in this gospel of the water and the Spirit.
God’s door was already opened long ago, but people are still bound to
perish because the doors of their hearts are not opened yet, and because
they do not believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit.
The
sins that we committed from birth to 20 and when we were 21–30 years
old are also “the sins of the world,” and so these sins were all passed
onto Jesus, and the sins that we committed when we were 31–40 years old
are also “the sins of the world,” and so they, too, were all passed onto
Jesus. He is the Son of God who took upon each and every one of our
sins. Are not the sins that people commit when they are 41–100 years old
also the sins of the world? Jesus also took upon all these sins through
His baptism, for they are also the sins that we commit in this world.
Because the love of Jesus is eternal and boundless, He did not divide
our sins into original and personal sins, but He accepted all our sins
through His baptism and shed His blood on the Cross to His death.
Had
Jesus not come to this earth, had He not been baptized, and had He not
shed His blood, then our faith of the remission of sin would have been
all in vain, the death of Jesus Christ would also have been in vain, and
for us to believe in the Lord and suffer for Him would all have been in
completely futile.
Were
the sins of your children passed onto Jesus through His baptism? Let’s
confirm this. Aren’t your children living in this world? If they are
living in this world, that it is only too clear that their sins were
also passed onto Jesus. The proof for this is the baptism that Jesus
received from John the Baptist, and the condemnation of their sins is
the very blood that Jesus shed on the Cross (John 19:30-34). The sins of
your grandchildren, and the sins of the their descendants who are not
even born yet, were all passed onto Jesus through His baptism, and this
Jesus shouldered all our sins and remitted them all away on the Cross.
Though we commit sins everyday because of our weaknesses, such sins that
we commit are also the sins of the world, and therefore Jesus took them
away through His baptism and blood.
John
8:31-32 state, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The truth
here is none other than the very righteous act of Jesus that He
fulfilled with His Word. It is deeply disturbing that most Christians
still believe such false doctrinal or denominational teachings that they
must keep the Sabbath and say the prayers of repentance everyday to be
forgiven for their sins. They believe that Jesus took away their
original sin, but He did not take away their personal sins. This is why
they have no other choice but to become even more sinful sinners as time
passes by. Their efforts may seem admirable, but as far as their
salvation is concerned, this is not really where their devotion should
lie.
What
we must do is to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and
to thereby receive the remission of our sins. This is the will of God
for us. The more we try to keep the Law, the more difficult it is for us
to do so, and we end up discovering ourselves that we are in fact
becoming even more of a sinner before God. But by believing in the
gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that the Lord has given us, we
can all indeed be saved from all the sins of the world. Hallelujah!
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