And Jesus answering said unto him,
Permit it to be so now: for thus it is fitting for us to
fulfill all righteousness.
Then he permitted him.
All Commentaries on Matthew 3:15 Go To Matthew 3
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Hom. 10, 1: Because after his baptism Christ was to put an end to the Law, He therefore came to be baptized at this age, that having so kept the Law, it might not be said that He cancelled it, because He could not observe it.
“Then,” that is when John preached, that He might confirm his preaching, and Himself receive his witness. But as when the morning-star has risen, the sundoes not wait for that star to set, but rising as it goes forward, gradually obscures its brightness; so Christ waited not for John to finish his course, but appeared while he yet taught.
He comes to baptism, that He who has taken upon Him human nature, may be found to have fulfilled the whole mystery of that nature; not that He is Himself asinner, but He has taken on Him a nature that is sinful. And therefore though He needed not baptism Himself, yet the carnal nature in others needed it.
Hom. 12: But since John’s baptism was to repentance, and therefore showed the presence of sin, that none might suppose Christ’s coming to the Jordan to have been on this account, John cried to Him, “I have need to be baptized of Thee,and comest Thou to me? "As if he had said.
That Thou shouldest baptize me there is good cause, that I may be made righteous and worthy of heaven; but that I should baptize Thee, what cause is there? Every good gift comes down from heaven upon earth, not ascends from earth to heaven.
In this he shows that Christ after this baptized John; which is expressly told in some apocryphal books. Or thus, “all righteousness,” according to the ordinance of human nature; as He had before fulfilled the righteousness of birth, growth, and the like.
