There was no righteousness among the Israelites, so they needed to repent. John charged the people to repent because of the kingdom of the heavens. The kingdom of God is of righteousness (Rom. 14:17), and the kingdom of the heavens is particularly based upon righteousness. In Matthew 5:20 the Lord said, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall by no means enter into the kingdom of the heavens.” This righteousness is the foundation of God’s throne (Psa. 89:14).
When the people received John’s preaching and came to repent to him, he right away baptized them by putting them into the water to bury them, indicating that they were men of the flesh who had nothing good (Rom. 7:18) and were worthy only of death and burial. Perhaps some people thought that there should be a good result after their repenting to John. Instead, John put them into the water to bury them, indicating that they were good for nothing. I believe this was why the Pharisees and Sadducees would not come to John. The Gospels show us that there were disciples of three parties: those of John the Baptist, those of the Pharisees, and those of the Sadducees. Those of John the Baptist were a real test to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, so none of them dared to come to John.
The first thought of the New Testament dispensation of grace, the dispensation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, is that all fallen men of the flesh are worthy of nothing except death and burial. This is very serious. Regretfully, many in today’s Christianity give people a wrong concept in their preaching of the gospel. We must have people preaching the gospel today who are like John the Baptist, calling people to repent.
Following John’s ministry, Jesus Christ came and baptized these people with the Spirit, joining them, in resurrection, to God, who saved them by justifying them according to His righteousness (Rom. 1:17; 3:21-25; 1 Cor. 1:30). The New Testament begins with the thought of John’s preaching, that is, that men of the flesh are good only for death and burial. But this is not the thought of the entire New Testament gospel. This is just the beginning. This thought is continued with the Lord Jesus’ coming to practice another kind of baptism. He baptized people into the Spirit to join them in resurrection to God. In baptism there is the practice of burial into water and then a rising up from the water, signifying resurrection. Through death and burial we are finished, but then there is a resurrection. In resurrection, Jesus joins us to God. This thought is greater than death and burial.
The first thought of the New Testament gospel is that every fallen man of the flesh is good for nothing except death and burial, and the second thought is that if you recognize this, Jesus Christ will come to baptize you into the living God, joining you to God in resurrection. This saves you by justifying you according to His righteousness. The Baptizer, Christ, joins you to God to make you one with God, who is righteousness. God would justify you only by His righteousness.
Romans 1:16 and 17 say that the gospel is the power of God that saves both Israel and the Gentiles because the righteousness of God is revealed in it. Baptism is so powerful because Jesus joins the baptized ones to God to make them God in life and nature but not in the Godhead. When a poor wife is joined to her millionaire husband in marriage, they become one. She may have been a poor girl, but at the moment they are joined in marriage she becomes a millionaire. This is what happened when we were joined to God in baptism.
John the Baptist’s ministry is to deal with our real situation, which is that we are men of the flesh who are worthy only of death and burial. But Christ, another baptizer, came and joined us to God in resurrection. We were resurrected with Christ to be one with God. Now we are “millionaires” who are joined to another person. This is the second thought of the New Testament gospel of grace. The righteous God gave Himself to us as our righteousness, and this righteousness justified us.