why would God baptise himself?
why did jesus when pressed about the exact time of the end,said only the Father knew that.
why did jesus when fully crucified cry out to his father asking why he was forsaken?
Q. why would God baptise himself?A. Jesus, the Son of God, is the One who merited for us the gift and work of the Holy Spirit, whose initial operation in sinners is regeneration. Again, repentance and forgiveness of sins are proclaimed in Jesus' Name (Luke 24), according to his own commission. Jesus gained for us the gift of repentance; he himself needed no repentance.
Now Jesus, being the federal head of his own (Christians), had to identify himself with his people, and this included his baptism and death, his anointing with the Spirit, and his victory over temptation. He insisted that John must baptise him; in his role as Messiah, "born under the law" (Galatians 4:4), Jesus had to submit to all God's requirements for Israel. He had to be one with all those whose sins he had come to bear and take away. His baptism therefore is appropriate: it proclaimed that he had come to take the sinner's place under God's judgement. It is in this sense that he was baptised "to fulfil all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15; cf. Isaiah 53:11).
Jesus not only taught us the perfect righteousness that God requires; he also secures God's righteousness for sinners - He himself is their righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30). All this is pointed at during his baptism: it signified that his death was "a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28), and shows the perfect obedience in which he fulfils all righteousness (Jeremiah 23:5,6).
Q. why did jesus when pressed about the exact time of the end,said only the Father knew that.A. As a man, Jesus cooperated with the limitations of being a man. That is why we have verses like Luke 2:52 that says "Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." Therefore, at this point in his ministry he could say He did not know the day nor hour of His return. It is not a denial of His being God, but a confirmation of Him being man.
Before Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection He said the Father alone knew the day and hour of His return. It wasn't until after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection that omniscience is attributed to Jesus.
After Jesus' resurrection, He was able to appear and disappear at will. This is not the normal ability of a man. But, it is, apparently, the normal ability of a resurrected and glorified man. Jesus was different after the resurrection. There had been a change. He was still a man and He knew all things.
Q. why did jesus when fully crucified cry out to his father asking why he was forsaken?A. This cry is a fulfillment of Psalm 22:1, one of many parallels between that psalm and the specific events of the crucifixion. It has been difficult to understand in what sense Jesus was “forsaken” by God. It is certain that God approved His work. It is certain that He was innocent. He had done nothing to forfeit the favor of God. As His own Son - holy, harmless, undefiled, and obedient - God still loved Him. In none of these senses could God have forsaken Him.
However, Isaiah tells us that “he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows; that he was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; that the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him; that by his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5). He redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). He was made a sin-offering, and He died in our place, on our account, that He might bring us near to God. It was this, doubtless, which caused His intense sufferings. It was the manifestation of God’s hatred of sin, in some way which He has not explained, that Jesus experienced in that terrible hour. It was suffering endured by Him that was due to us, and suffering by which, and by which alone, we can be saved from eternal death.
In those awful moments, Jesus was expressing His feelings of abandonment as God placed the sins of the world on Him – and because of that had to “turn away” from Jesus. As Jesus was feeling that weight of sin, He was experiencing separation from God for the only time in all of eternity. It was at this time that 2 Corinthians 5:21 occurred, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus became sin for us, so He felt the loneliness and abandonment that sin always produces, except that in His case, it was not His sin – it was ours.
Hope this helps,
HM
