The Israelites of old identified with their sacrificial animals by laying hands upon those animals. The animals in turn represented Jesus who willingly gave up his flesh in order to serve and save men. Likewise, those animals typify men who willingly give up their lives for the sake of others. Today men lay hands upon people in order to bestow spiritual blessings, to pray for another, or to simply identify with another’s position. Men also lay their hands “to the plow” in order to do the living works that God has called them to do. Our hands represent us and what we do. The doctrine of the laying on of hands speaks of a life given to the doing of the Gospel, to doing the word of God.
This leads us to the fourth elementary teaching of the Gospel, the doctrine of baptisms. Like most basic doctrines of Christianity, this too has been misunderstood. In order to understand it we once again must turn to the Old Testament. In Leviticus chapter 1 we see the baptism, or washing, of the burnt offering sacrifice. Here we see that the priest offering the sacrifice must wash the entrails and the legs of the sacrifice with water. We have moved now from the laying on of hands by the man who offers the sacrifice to the washing, or baptism, of the sacrifice by the officiating priest of the sacrifice.
This explains why Jesus had to be baptized by John the Baptist. John himself was a priest from the line of Aaron. John’s father, Zechariah, was serving in the temple of God when an angel of the Lord appeared to him and announced that he and his wife Elizabeth would bear a son named John. The angel prophesied that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb and that he would turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. The angel said that he would go before the Lord himself in the spirit and power of Elijah in order to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, and that he would make ready for the Lord a people prepared. See Luke 1:5-17.
John the Baptist appeared in Israel months before Jesus showed himself. John came preaching a baptism of repentance from sins and of preparation for the kingdom of God. He was recognized by the people as a true prophet and as a true priest of the Most High. Finally Jesus himself came to be baptized by John, but when he did, John told him that he should be baptized by Jesus instead. But, Jesus wanted John to baptize him and said, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15) What does this mean?
Jesus was fulfilling the Levitical law of the burnt offering sacrifice. John was the officiating priest and Jesus himself was the sacrifice to be offered. As the priest John had the responsibility to wash, or baptize, the sacrifice. Jesus knew that he would become a burnt offering and, therefore, in order to fulfill the righteousness of God’s law, he knew he must be washed by the priest. Not only did Jesus identify with the sacrifice; he was the sacrifice. Next we will discuss how the teaching of baptism allows us to assimilate all that Jesus is into ourselves.
