The following is my translation of the notes and useful applications for the Holy Gospel of the Baptism of Our Lord (Wednesday of the First Sunday after Epiphany), Matthew 3:13–17, as they are found in Das Weimarische Bibelwerk (1877). Square brackets indicate my own notes and additions. For the useful applications, I recommend the reader see this very helpful article by Dr. Benjamin T. G. Mayes.
III. The history of the Baptism of Christ. (v. 13–17)
Annotated Text
13. At that time came Jesus from Galilee (from Nazareth, where He had been reared by His parents, Luke 2:51) to the Jordan to John (He did not send for Him and demand him to come to Him as His servant, but rather went Himself to him), that He might allow Himself to be baptized by him. (For although Christ had no need of baptism for His own person because He was altogether without sin [Hebrews 4:15], yet because He had laid upon Himself our sin, John 1:29, He also wanted for our sake to allow Himself to be baptized in order to drown our sin in the Jordan, indeed, to cast it into the depth of the sea, Micah 7:19, and sanctify the Jordan and all waters through contact with His holy and life-giving flesh for our saving baptism. )
(Mark 1:9; Luke 3:21)
14. But John opposed Him (He by no means wanted to allow it) and said, “I indeed need to be baptized (and washed of sin through Your blood and Your Holy Spirit) by You (as the lesser by the greater), and you come to me (that I should baptize You, when you are the Lord, the Creator, the Holy One, and Righteous One, but I am the servant, the creature, the sinner, and the unrighteous one)?
15. But Jesus answered and said to him, “Let it thus be (in the present estate of my humiliation) now (that I be baptized by you); in this way it befits us to fulfill all righteousness (it befits Me, as the ordained Mediator, that I not only acquire and bring back again the lost perfect righteousness to the human race through My suffering and death, Daniel 9:24, 1 Corinthians 1:30, 2 Corinthians 5:21, but also that I sanctify the means ordained by God through which that same righteousness is offered to men and is appropriated to faith, among which is also the Sacrament of Holy Baptism; therefore, it befits Me to accept baptism, but you to impart it to Me.1 Luther: “All righteousness is fulfilled when we renounced all our righteousness and honor so that God only is regarded as the One who is righteous and who makes believers righteous. John does this when He lays aside His own righteousness and wants to be baptized and justified by Christ as a sinner. Christ also does this when He does not take up His own righteousness and honor, but rather allows Himself to be baptized and put to death, as any other sinner”).” Then he allowed it to Him (then John obeyed Christ so that he baptized Him).
(Matthew 5:17; Galatians 4:4; Philippians 2:8)
1 † The baptism of Christ was a part of His mediatorial office, according to which He also voluntarily submitted Himself to this will of His Father according to Zechariah 6:13, and thereby He presented a new pledge of His further, not yet carried out, perfect obedience; consequently, He brought about for us men all the gracious good pleasure of God, in particular the divine power of the ordained means of grace, above all, Holy Baptism, Psalm 40:9.
16. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately He went up from the water (for at Christ’s baptism such admonition and teaching were not necessary which John was accustomed to use with other baptizands); and behold, then the heaven opened up over Him (it was seen that the heaven parted over Christ, and a bright luminous beam descended from heaven upon Christ to indicate that He is a Teacher from God who has come down from heaven, John 3:2, who through His mediatorial office would open heaven, Ephesians 1:10, and that the door of heaven is also opened to us through Holy Baptism, 1 Peter 3:21). And John saw (in this light) the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Godhead), as a dove (in bodily form as a dove, which is not a natural dove and also is not the mere external form of a dove, but rather a special creature of the Holy Spirit like a dove),1 descending and upon Him (Christ) coming (and also remaining upon Him, not as if Christ previously had previously not been partaking of the Holy Spirit; but rather, through this external descent, the inward dwelling of the Holy Spirit was indicated, that He received the Spirit not according to measure, but rather in the highest fullness, John 3:34, and that He is the one who baptized with the Holy Spirit, John 1:33).
(Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32)
1 * And thus, this description is not to be understood only as a likeness to a gradually falling cloud.
17. And behold, a (distinguished, clear, and majestic) * voice (God the Father) from heaven spoke down (allowed itself to be heard from the same light), “This is My beloved Son, (whom I have begotten from eternity from My own essence according to His divinity, Psalm 2:7, and whom I now present to the entire world, especially to My people Israel, as their Savior in a personally assumed human nature and in the freely undertaken form a servant [Philippians 2:7])1 in whom I have good pleasure (through whom I will fulfill My gracious will of redemption of the human race, and in whom, My beloved Son, I will love all who believe in Him, Ephesians 1:6).”
* Matthew 17:5; Mark 1:11, 9:7 (Matthew 12:18; 1 Peter 1:17; Colossians 1:13; Isaiah 42:1)
1 † For there is no doubt that all this happened publicly and before many people who were present.
Useful Applications
III. DOCTRINE: Concerning the highly praised Holy Trinity, which is revealed here publicly: God the Father through the voice from heaven, God the Son in His assumed humanity, according to which He received baptism, and of which the Father said, “This is My beloved Son, etc.,” and God the Holy Spirit in the visible form of a dove. (v. 16–17) COMFORT: O blessed water-bath which the Son of God has sanctified in Himself! (v. 15ff.) COMFORT: Yet, even more comforting is this, that the Father also assures us of His good pleasure in Him. (v. 17)
PATTERN OF SOUND WORDS 