In a sermon given by my old Baptist pastor about 7 years ago, he made this offhand remark, paraphrased: “The reason I know that baptism does not wash away sins is because Jesus was baptized, and He had never sinned, so it’s purpose could never be to wash away sins.”
On the surface, it sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? I think to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who heard this sermon, it probably even stuck in their minds because it was short enough to be easily remembered and used as an apologetic tool.
However, I came to believe around that same time that baptism does indeed wash away sins, by God’s grace. How can my old pastor’s arguments be refuted, however?
Well, there are many ways, but the ones that most get to the heart of the matter are explained very clearly by Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI, in Jesus of Nazareth, the book he wrote recently:
John’s baptism includes the confessions of sins (cf. Mark 1:5)….Immersion in the water is about purification, about liberation from the filth of the past that burdens and distorts life–it is about beginning again, and that means it is about death and resurrection, about starting life over again anew.
The real novelty is the fact that he–Jesus–wants to be baptized, that he blends into the gray mass of sinners waiting on the banks of the Jordan….Baptism itself was a confession of sins and the attempt to put off an old, failed life and to receive a new one. Is that something that Jesus could do? How could he confess sins? How could he separate himself from his previous life in order to start a new one? Matthew goes on to report for us that “Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he consented (Mt 3:15).
Looking at the events in light of the Cross and Resurrection, the Christian people realized what happened: Jesus loaded the burdens of all mankind’s guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it down into the depths of the Jordan. He inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners….The Baptism is an acceptance of death for the sins of humanity….This also explains why, in his own discourses, Jesus uses the word baptism to refer to his death (cf. Mk 10:38, Lk 12:50).
Jesus’ Baptism anticipated His death on the Cross, Pope Benedict concludes. So, just as Jesus, though sinless, was put to death on the Cross for our sins, paradoxically he submits to John’s baptism in spite of His sinlessness.
