Furthermore, after He died judicially for these repentant people, Christ resurrected to live within them that they may live by Christ’s life, a life of righteousness to be justified by God all the time. This is why Romans 4:25 says that He was raised for our justification. We do not have a dead Savior. We have a Savior who is living, and as the living Spirit, He lives in us. By His life, we have a living that God has to justify all the time. This is the God-man living.
God, the righteous One, gave Himself to us as our righteousness. In the same principle, Christ is given to us as our righteousness. Christ and God are one. First Corinthians 1:30 says Christ, who is given to us, is our righteousness. Christ also has His own righteous act. Romans 5:18 says that Christ’s one righteous act was unto justification of life to all men. By His one righteous act of dying on the cross, we all have been justified. Christ has His own righteousness, which qualifies Him to be our Savior.
Some make the mistake of confusing Christ’s personal righteous act with Christ Himself, the person. When we compiled our hymnal (Hymns), we corrected all such mistakes in the hymns. Hymn #295 by Zinzendorf said, “Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness / My beauty are, my glorious dress.” We corrected this to read: “God’s Christ, who is my righteousness, / My beauty is, my glorious dress.” Christ, the person, is our righteousness.
All these people are called “the righteous” who will shine forth like the sun in the coming kingdom (Matt. 13:43), and their righteousness will abide in the new heavens and new earth forever (2 Pet. 3:13). The righteous are also referred to in Matthew 10:41 and Luke 14:14, and the way of righteousness is spoken of in 2 Peter 2:21. Luke 14:14 speaks of the resurrection of the righteous. Second Peter 2:21 speaks of the rebellious ones who knew the way of righteousness but turned away from God. The New Testament dispensation of grace is to produce the God-man living, and the God-man living is a life of righteousness.
Thus, to repent and be baptized according to John’s preaching and practice was ordained by God according to the righteous requirements of God’s eternal economy; hence, it is to fulfill the righteousness of God (Matt. 3:15) as a matter of eternity. To be baptized is to keep God’s New Testament ordinance, to recognize yourself before God according to His evaluation and to fulfill God’s righteous requirement.
Matthew 3:13-15 reveals the proper and righteous base of Jesus’ baptism: “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. But John tried to prevent Him, saying, It is I who have need of being baptized by You, and You come to me? But Jesus answered and said to him, Permit it for now, for it is fitting for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness. Then he permitted Him.”
The base for Jesus to be baptized is that He considered Himself, according to His humanity, a man, especially an Israelite, who is a man “in the flesh” (John 1:14). Even though He was only “in the likeness of the flesh of sin” (Rom. 8:3), “without sin” (Heb. 4:15), yet He was “in the flesh,” which has nothing good but is worthy only of death and burial. Christ as the Word of God became flesh and flesh is a negative term. Of course, Romans 8:3 tells us that He was only in the likeness of the flesh of sin, but He was still in the flesh. This was His standing in His humanity. John the Baptist came out to preach repentance to people in the flesh. Jesus admitted He was in the flesh. Whatever He had according to the flesh was only good for death and burial. He was standing on that ground, and that ground became His base for Him to be baptized.
Based upon this fact, at the beginning of His ministry for God, Jesus was willing to be baptized by John the Baptist, recognizing that, according to His humanity, He was one who did not have any qualification to be a servant of God. Jesus stood according to His real situation. His real situation was that He was a man of flesh.
As a man in the flesh, He needed to be a dead man buried in the death water to fulfill God’s New Testament requirement according to His righteousness, and He did it willingly, considering it the fulfilling of God’s righteousness. Such a base surely is proper and righteous.