By Roy B. Blizzard
In continuing our study of the difficult words of Jesus I am going to be treating material that I have never written on before. The information that follows was the introduction to a series of studies on previously untreated passages that I delivered in a seminar in California. It is basically a transcription of the first session and, rather than beginning with the words of Jesus, I started in Matthew, Chapter 3, with the words of John.
The article has been transcribed basically as delivered live, so the style will be slightly different from my regular writing style. However, I elected to leave it as is for a different flavor.
In Matthew 3:11, John states, "I indeed baptize with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I whose shoes I am not worthy to bare. He shall baptize you with the holy ghost and with fire," What's that mean? This is important to us in understanding the whole theme and purpose of Jesus' teachings. What is He trying to accomplish? John says He, that is, Jesus, is going to baptize you with the holy ghost and with fire. When we hear that most of us think that the two words are synonymous, and that Jesus is going to come and baptize with the Holy Spirit. Right? We associate fire with the cloven tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost. In Luke 12:49,50, it is written:
I am come to send fire on the earth and what will I if it be already kindled. But I have a baptism to be baptized with. And how am I straightened until it be accomplished?
In Hebrew the word for straightened is tza'ar ('troubled'). As in, "How I'm going to be troubled," or "How I'm going to be distressed." Until all of what is finished? Until His Baptism. But what kind of baptism is it? Remember, Jesus said, "Suppose ye that I'm come to give peace on the earth? No, but rather division. For from henceforth there shall be five and one half houses divided. Three against two and two against three. The father against the son, the son against the father. The mother against the daughter, the daughter against the mother. The mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." What's He talking about? Fire! In Verse 12 we read, "…whose fan is in His hand and He will thoroughly purge his floor and gather His wheat into the garner, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. He shall baptize you with the holy ghost and with fire." It states that His fan is in His hand and He is going to purge the floor and He's going gather the wheat into the storehouse. But…He is going to burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. In other words, the fire He is talking about is the fire of judgment. Fire equals judgment! People are going to be judged by how they respond to the words and teachings of Jesus. Father against son and the mother against daughter. The house is going to be divided because of Him. Some will heed and will accept and others will reject. He says I'm sorry about that. I didn't come to bring peace, or, that peace is not going to be the end result of my coming. But by the very nature of what I have to say, it will set brother against brother, father against son, daughter against mother. People are going to be judged by the way they respond to my teachings.
Now if that's true, then that means His words, whatever it is that He has to say to us, must be important. It means we ought to know what He says and we had better know what it means if we're going to be judged as to how we respond to what it is that He says. Fire means judgment!
In Verse 13, Jesus comes from the Galilee to the Jordan river unto John to be baptized of John. But, John forbade him, saying, "I have need to be baptized of thee and comest thou to me? Jesus answering said unto him, 'suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.' And then he suffered him." What does that mean? Have any of you ever been perplexed by that? Jesus said, "suffer it to be so, because it behooves us to fulfill all righteousness." What does that mean? Who is this that is coming to be baptized? Jesus! Why is this confusing? Well, for a lot of Christians, it is confusing, because they know nothing about baptism. It could be anything from sprinkling a little water to dunking them completely under. Neither knows what they are doing.
Most Christians are completely ignorant when it comes to the subject of baptism. What is baptism? What was the purpose of baptism according to Jewish law? Even to this day, at this very moment, we know exactly what it was. We know how it was done. We know where it was done. Why? Because we've had extant all of these years, since the time of Jesus, written information that tells us about the Jewish ritual and rite of immersion. We know where it was done. We know the size of the ritual immersion baths in which they were immersed.
Almost every Jewish community that we've excavated has had a ritual immersion bath, called a mikvah, very close to the synagogue or somewhere in the town center. And even though we have excavated in certain communities where we have not found it, we've probably not been able to because those sites are so large. But we could expect to find it. It was necessary to the whole performance of Jewish law and ritual.
In Judaism, baptism meant one thing – baptism for the forgiveness of sins. It was for spiritual cleansing for right relationships with God. It wasn't to get into the Church. It wasn't to be a member of the Church. It wasn't the outward sign of an inward act that had already taken place. It was for the forgiveness of sins. It was by immersion. However, in Judaism, nobody ever immersed anybody else. Now it may come as a real surprise to learn that John the Baptist did not baptize Jesus. That is, he didn't take Him and dunk Him under. In Hebrew, the name, "John the Baptist," is Yehochanan Hamatbil. That last word, Hamatbil, in Hebrew, should be translated as, John the one who by virtue of what he is saying is causing the people to go under. It's in the causative verbal construction, which means he's causing them to go under.
In Judaism, all baptism was self-administered. They went down into the water, into the ritual immersion bath. We know exactly how big the ritual immersion bath had to be. It had to contain at least 120 gallons. If it contained 120 gallons minus one spoonful it wasn't kosher. The people went down into the ritual immersion bath, stood with their feet apart, their hands out in front of them, fingers apart, usually with their eyes and their mouths open, and they just dunked themselves under. BUT..there had to be a witness to ensure the person was completely under, because if just one single strand of hair was out of the water, it wasn't kosher and they had to do it all over again. So, the witness was there so that he could assist them to make sure they were completely under. So the baptism would be kosher. But again, what was the purpose of it? Forgiveness of sins or right relationships with God. In order that the person might be in right relationship with God. Well, any of us who know anything at all about Jesus, know one thing. That He wasn't a sinner. He didn't have any need to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Not only do we know that, John knew that. And when Jesus came to him for baptism, John immediately said, "You don't need to be baptized. I need to be baptized by you." Then Jesus said something very interesting, in Verse 15, "And Jesus answered and said to him, 'permit me because it behooves us to fulfill all righteousness.'"The word tzedakah is translated in English as "righteousness," but it means so much more than that.
Because we have never understood the meaning of this word, we have never really understood the whole mission of the Church. We've been out here playing some kind of a little silly game, that we call "church" and most of us do not have the foggiest idea about what the program really is. One reason is because we have never understood this one word, which serves as the whole foundation upon which Biblical faith is built, Tedakah.
Tzedakah comes from the Hebrew tsade, dalet, kof – Tzedek; the masculine noun means what is right. What is just. What is normal. It means rightness. It means justness. It means rightness as in government. It means rightness as in undertaking justice or performing justice, or carrying out justice. It means rightness insofar as what is ethically right. It also means justification in the sense of a controversy with one's enemy. Now remember shortly after His baptism, what's going to happen? Jesus is going to be carried by the Spirit where? Out into the wilderness to be tempted by the enemy. So Tzedakah has to do with justifying the individual as far as his rightness is concerned. It means delivering one from trouble. It means victory. It means redemption. Tzedakah, righteousness in government, of a judge or ruler or king. It's equal to mishpat, which means judgment of the law. God is a righteous judge. It has to do with one of God's attributes as sovereign, as the King. It has to do with God's attribute in administering justice or administering punishment. Remember what John said? John said, "He's going to baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Remember what Jesus said? Jesus said, "I've got a baptism to baptized with", What was it going to be? Judgment!
In Malachi 4:2, it says, "…but unto you who revere and worshipfully fear My Name, shall the son of righteousness arise with healing in His wings." Now there is something here so fantastic. The word "wing" in Hebrew is kanaf. In Numbers 15:37, it says, "And then the LORD said to Moses, 'speak to the children of Israel and say to them that they shall make the fringes (tzitzit) in the corners (kanaf) of their garments.'" And here kanaf does not mean a corner, but a wing. You see, on the Hebrew prayer shawl, the fringes (tzitzit) are on the corners. And the "corners" here are called wings (kanaf). When worn, it looks like you have wings. "And they should put with the fringe of each wing a thread of blue." And how long were they suppose to do this? Throughout all of their generations.
Now, what am I getting at? Well, Moses goes on and tells the people what God told him. That this tzitzit or this fringe was going to be a tzitzit that they were going to look upon and remember all of the commandments of the Lord, to do them. "That you may remember and do them. All the commandments of the Lord and be holy unto the Lord."
In Matthew 9:20, we read, "And behold a woman which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years came behind Him and touched the tzitzit of His beged." Jesus' name in Hebrew is Yeshua. What does Yeshua mean? We're always talking about "getting folks saved." Well, what are we going to do with them? Put them in the bank and let them draw interest? What does it mean to be saved? What do we do when we get folks saved? What should be happening when someone is saved? You're going to call His name Yeshua because He's going to yoshiah His people from their sins. What's that mean? Well, for one thing it says He is going to save His people, and we see that whenever someone comes that's not one of His people, He doesn't want to have anything to do with them. Remember on one occasion Jesus says, "The Son of man is come to seek and to save those that are lost." Where did He get that? Did you know that He was just quoting from the Old Testament? Remember now that not only is Jesus a Jew, not only is He a rabbi, not only is He speaking Hebrew, but He's using rabbinic methods in teaching. He is always alluding to something that has already been said. Something that's already been written. Something already in the Biblical text. Almost every time you hear Him speak you can ask yourself, "Where did He get that?" If you will just look and you know enough about the Biblical text, enough about Hebrew, enough about Jewish law, you can usually find exactly where He got it. When Jesus said "…the Son of man is come to seek and to save those that are lost," He quotes from Ez. 34.
Let's look at Verse 11, "For thus says the Lord God, I myself will search for my sheep. I will seek them out as a shepherd seeks out his sheep that are scattered in the day that he's among the flock so will I seek out my sheep. I will rescue them out of all of the places they've been scattered. I will bring them out from the people," etc. Verse 16, "I will seek that which Was lost. I will bring that which was strayed. I will bandaged the hurt and the cripple. I will strengthen the weak and the sick." In these passages are four synonymous parallelisms. These four sentences are synonymous in Hebrew. They are all parallel one with the other. What does it mean to be saved? "I will seek that which was lost." What does that mean? It means he is going to bring back those who were strayed. He's going to bandage the hurt and the cripple. He's going to strengthen the weak and the sick. But He is going to destroy the fat and the strong and the perverse. And He's going to feed them with judgment and punishment.
What does tzedekah mean? "And the son of righteousness is going to arise with healing in His wings." The One who delivers, who heals, who exhalts His people. And that's what tzedakah is. And notice here, when this little woman hears Jesus speak and she recognizes Him for who He is, "the Son of righteousness," she reaches out and touches the tzitzit of His beged. The "wings" of His garment. And when she reaches out and touches Jesus, what does she get? She gets saved! Listen again to what she says, "…she says within herself, 'if I can just touch the tzitzit of His garment, I'll be Yeshuaed'. And Jesus turned and looked at her and said, 'My power.'" And then He said to her, "my daughter." When Jesus says, "My daughter," what does that indicate? She was already a part of the family. She was already one of the sheep, except she was lost.
So what does lost mean? It doesn't necessarily mean that she was separated from God. It doesn't necessarily mean that she wasn't going to have her place in the world to come. It meant that she was a sociological outcast NOW. With the issue of blood, nobody could touch her without becoming unclean. She couldn't come into physical contact with her children. No one could even sit on the same bench on which she sat. No one could sleep on the same bed on which she had slept. She could have no sexual intercourse with her husband. You talk about lost. You and I don't even understand that. We can't relate to that kind of a condition. She wasn't interested in whether she was going to get to go to heaven or not. She wanted to be whole in this world. NOW. And Jesus turned to her and said, "…my daughter, your faith has Yeshuaed you." And it goes on to say, "…and the woman was Tivasha (completely whole) from that hour." She was saved from that hour. But when she was saved, what did she get? Don't even think in terms of healing. Because even that is too limited, too narrow. Think in terms of wholeness or completeness. Think in terms of restoration. That which was lost was found. That which was strayed had been brought back. That which was unclean was now clean. That which was only in part was now made whole. And what caused that to happen? Tzedakah, "the son of tzedakah." This is the reason why Jesus says, "permit this or allow this, because it is absolutely necessary for the purpose of fulfilling and completing tzedzkah. In order that I might become the son of righteousness. That I might be the anointed to save, in the fullest sense of the word. To seek and to save those that are lost."
What does the word Messiah mean? It means the anointed one "Messiah." It's translated into the Greek as "Christ." When we say Jesus Christ, we think that "Christ," is His last name. But Christ in Greek, Christos, means the same thing, "the Anointed One." When did Jesus become the Christ? Only after His baptism. When he fulfills all tzedakah, it says, "And Jesus when He was baptized went up straight way out of the water and to the heavens were opened unto Him and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him and lo a voice from heaven saying, "this is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased." And now God can present Him to the world. "This is My Son." The Son of tzedakah who came to seek and to save those that are lost. Had not Jesus gone through baptism, would He have been the Son of righteousness? The answer is obviously no. Had He not fulfilled all Tzedakah, He would not have had the annointing to fulfill His mission of Yeshua. Had he not undergone baptism He would not have been in right relationship with God. Hence, the necessity and importance of Jesus' baptism.
