Why Does Jesus Get Baptized in the Wilderness?

Summary

BibleProject Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Why Does Jesus Get Baptized in the Wilderness?
Air Date: October 20, 2025
Hosts: Tim Mackey & John Collins

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Overview of Main Theme

This episode explores the profound theological significance of Jesus’ baptism in the wilderness. Tracing the biblical motif of wilderness as a place of testing, purification, and preparation, the hosts investigate why Jesus, who had no sins to repent of, joined in a baptism of repentance. The conversation weaves together Old Testament patterns, Second Temple Judaism, and Jesus’s own self-identification with Israel’s story of failure, exile, and hope for restoration.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Wilderness Motif in the Bible

• Wilderness as Opportunity:
  John opens by framing the wilderness not solely as punishment, but as “an opportunity” for transformation and preparation.

  "The wilderness... can feel like a punishment or maybe even pointless hardship, [but] the biblical authors want us to see the wilderness as an opportunity." (John, 00:05)

• Binary of Garden and Wilderness:
  Tim elaborates that in the Bible, “the garden is the place of order, life, heaven on earth, abundance, the ideal. The wilderness is the opposite of all of that.” (Tim, 02:46)
• Cycle of Failure:
  Despite repeated tests, both in garden and wilderness, Israel (and humanity more broadly) continually fails to trust and obey God, leading to cycles of exile and incomplete restoration (Tim, 03:38–04:57).

Old Testament Hope and the Opening of Jesus's Story

• Ezekiel and Isaiah’s Hope:
  Prophets foresaw a time when God would use the wilderness to transform his people and restore covenant partnership (Tim, 04:57). Isaiah 40 promises God's return, comfort, and a “highway in the wilderness.”
• John the Baptist as a New Exodus Figure:
  John the Baptist baptizes at the Jordan—a location rich in symbolic resonance—as a sign of repentance and readiness to re-enter the garden land (John, 01:02; Tim, 16:09–17:49).

John the Baptist’s Context and Connections

• Qumran Community Parallels:
  The hosts discuss the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran sect, another priestly group that retreated to the wilderness, seeking purification and faithfulness (Tim, 18:32–29:47).
  • This community “were also really into water baptism as a symbol of purification.” (Tim, 28:30)
• Tensions with Jerusalem Leadership:
  John calls out the Pharisees and Sadducees using language similar to the Qumran community, describing them as a “seed of the snake”—strong words for compromised leaders (Tim, 31:46–32:02).

Symbolism of Water, Wilderness, and Fire

• Passage and Purification:
  Passing “through the waters or through the wilderness… both have a purifying effect. They're kind of like opposites that have the same symbolic meaning.” (Tim, 17:49)
  • Baptism is analogous to the Israelites’ crossing into the Promised Land, linking past hopes to Jesus’s mission (John, 17:49–17:56).
• Testing Imagery:
  The “fire,” like the flood and the wilderness, is a biblical image for purification, not only destruction—preparing Israel to become God's faithful partner (Tim, 36:19–37:29).

Why Does Jesus Get Baptized?

• Jesus' Unique Participation:
  John balks at baptizing Jesus, recognizing “Jesus has nothing to repent of.” (Tim, 01:51)
  • Jesus insists: “This is appropriate for us in order to fulfill all righteousness.” (Tim, 40:07)
• Solidarity and Identification:
  Jesus chooses to be baptized as an act of identifying fully with Israel’s brokenness, recapitulating Israel’s story, and taking on their failures as his own (Tim, 41:08–42:24).

  “What if the one coming who will immerse you in God's breath and purifying fire… were to join Israel in the wilderness and repent on Israel's behalf, identify himself with the sins of his people? That would be an amazing act of generosity.” (Tim, 41:24)

• Jesus as the Faithful Human:
  The discussion wrestles with the paradox: if the garden is the ideal place to learn faithfulness, why does Jesus endure the wilderness? The answer: “What if the generosity and mercy of God was so great that God in the person of Jesus would join them… and suffer alongside those outside of Eden?” (Tim, 08:27)

Messianic Symbolism and the Voice from Heaven

• Jesus as True Israel:
  Jesus' baptism in the wilderness echoes archetypal figures: He’s the true “son of David,” the “servant” from Isaiah who will do what Israel could not (Tim, 46:34–47:45).
• Affirmation from God:
  At Jesus' baptism, the Spirit descends and a voice affirms:

  “This is my son… the beloved one… in whom I have delight.” (Tim, 46:34–47:45)
  The hosts point out these lines are layered references to Psalm 2, Genesis 22, and Isaiah’s servant songs.

• Preview of Jesus’s Mission:
  The baptism prefigures the greater “immersion” Jesus will undergo—culminating in his passion (suffering and death), which is the ultimate fire of testing and true purification for humanity (Tim, 48:40–48:45).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Paradox of Jesus Entering the Wilderness:

  "The situation when Jesus comes onto the scene could be just that. Jesus as the God of Israel become human, could just enjoy a garden existence within his communion with the Father…But what if the generosity and mercy of God was so great that God in the person of Jesus would join them in the leave the garden and suffer alongside those outside of Eden?"
  — Tim Mackey (08:11–08:27)

• On Jesus’s Baptism as an Act of Generosity:

  "We're already seeing a pattern of Jesus identifying with the weakness and frailty and suffering and sin of his people. An amazing act of generosity."
  — Tim Mackey (01:51–02:07)

• On Jesus "Fulfilling All Righteousness":

  “Allow it. Allow this right now. This is appropriate for us in order to fulfill all righteousness.”
  — Jesus (as read/paraphrased by Tim, 40:07)

• On the Wilderness as Opportunity:

  "The wilderness… can have multiple functions. It can feel like punishment…but it then can also be transformed into a refuge, intimate place where the suffering strips away…that I am in control. And it makes me learn…real life comes…from the word of God.”
  — Tim Mackey (06:13)

• On the Role of John the Baptist:

  "John chooses that spot to do this passing through the waters symbol…he’s in the wilderness, but then he’s making people pass through the waters…they both have a purifying effect."
  — Tim Mackey (16:09–17:49)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:05–01:51: Introduction to the wilderness theme and setup for Jesus’ baptism
• 09:00–14:10: Matthew’s account of John the Baptist and the Isaiah 40 connection
• 18:04–29:47: Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran community, and possible links to John the Baptist
• 31:46–34:51: John’s critique of religious leaders and eschatological warning
• 36:05–37:29: Discussion of baptism, Spirit, and fire as metaphors for purification/testing
• 40:07–42:24: Jesus’ insistence on being baptized and what it means for righteousness
• 46:34–48:45: Divine affirmation at Jesus' baptism and theological layering
• 48:45–49:10: Preview of next episode: Jesus’s testing/temptation in the wilderness

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Conclusion and Theological Takeaway

Jesus’ baptism in the wilderness is not about his need for repentance, but about his radical identification with Israel and humanity in their exile, testing, and failure. He enacts and fulfills Israel's story, passing through the symbolic waters and wilderness to bear the consequences of unfaithfulness and inaugurate the promised restoration. This episode sets up the next: Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness—he is the faithful Israelite and the true Son who endures the test not for himself, but for us all.

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For further study, the hosts suggest reading Matthew 3, Isaiah 40, and exploring the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran community. The next episode will delve into Jesus’ temptations—the tests of the true covenant partner in the wilderness.

Transcript

[John]

We've been tracing the theme of the wilderness through the story of the Bible. The wilderness is a dire place, hostile to life, full of tests. And while the wilderness can feel like a punishment or maybe even pointless hardship, the biblical authors want us to see the wilderness as an opportunity.

[Tim Mackey]

God can take someone's presence in the wilderness and turn it into an important time of testing and preparation to go back into a garden land.

[John]

God brings Israel into an abundant garden land to live by God's wisdom and share God's life to the world. But they turn from God and they choose violence and oppression instead. And so God lets empires take them.

[Tim Mackey]

Out of the land, what Ezekiel calls the wilderness of the nations. But Ezekiel sees hope that God's going to transform his people in the wilderness so that they can become his covenant partners in the garden land.

[John]

This hope remains beyond reach as the Hebrew Bible comes to a close. But lo and behold, the story of Jesus begins with a prophet preparing the way of God through the wilderness. This is John the Baptist. He's baptizing people in the waters of the Jordan river as a sign of repentance, a symbol to show that Israel is ready to re enter the garden land.

[Tim Mackey]

That connection of water and wilderness are opposites, but they become parallel symbols of something deadly or dangerous. And when God leads people through the waters or through the wilderness, they both have a purifying effect.

[John]

Jesus comes on the scene and he asks John to baptize him. And John knows who Jesus is, and he refuses. Why would Jesus need to go through this act of repentance?

[Tim Mackey]

But Jesus insists Jesus has nothing to repent of. So we're already seeing here a pattern of Jesus identifying with the weakness and frailty and suffering and sin of his people. An amazing act of generosity.

[John]

Today, Tim Mackey and I look at the baptism of Jesus in the wilderness. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim.

[Tim Mackey]

Hello, John. Hello.

[John]

We've been talking wilderness, and we are now going into the story of Jesus.

[Tim Mackey]

This is always an important moment in our theme conversations through the story of the Bible. This is the Jesus moment we got here. Yeah. I think we're like eight episodes in or more. And we're to Jesus.

[John]

Yeah. In a way, I feel like all of this has been preparation to read like a couple stories in Jesus life.

[Tim Mackey]

Totally. Yeah. We're going to meditate on two important moments from the Gospel according to Matthew's retelling of John the Baptist in the wilderness and how that was an important entree moment for Jesus to enter the scene. And then Jesus own Experience in the wilderness. But let's see. We did a big recap in the previous episode of the Wilderness theme. The wilderness is a hostile environment. It's pre creation, opposite of creation. So the garden and the wilderness become binary opposites. The garden is the place of order, life, heaven on earth, abundance, the ideal. The wilderness is the opposite of all of that. But when humans find themselves in the wilderness because of their own folly. I guess I'm doing a recap.

[John]

Yeah, do it.

[Tim Mackey]

Or because of the folly of other people. That's right. Heaped on them. And they are cast into the wilderness through no fault of their own. God can take someone's presence in the wilderness and turn it into an important time of testing and preparation to go back into a garden land. What happens, though, in the history of the Hebrew Bible is, is that the wilderness keeps not doing what you hope it would do in people's hearts and minds to trust that God wants to give them Eden, even in the middle of the wilderness. And so the cycle of Israel's story and history ends them up in what Ezekiel calls the wilderness of the nations, which is exile among the nations, primarily because of Babylon. But he calls it a wilderness, which means he sees hope that God's going to transform his people in the wilderness so that they can become his covenant partners in the garden land. And that is a hope that remains constantly just beyond reach as the Hebrew Bible comes to a close. And that's exactly why the Gospel of Matthew begins the way that it does.

[John]

Hmm.

[Tim Mackey]

Because what we're looking for is an Israelite covenant partner who will be the covenant partner that the people of Israel consistently failed to be over the course of the story of the Hebrew Bible.

[John]

And you can fail while in the wilderness, you can fail while in the garden land.

[Tim Mackey]

That's right. Yeah.

[John]

Yeah. And both of those stories happen over and over. And when you fail in the garden land, you end up back in the wilderness.

[Tim Mackey]

Back in the wilderness. Yeah.

[John]

And in the wilderness, you can frame it as a consequence, which it is. But then you can look at it at a different angle and realize, oh, this is an opportunity.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah, yeah.

[John]

This is an opportunity for me to be reformed, to get out of my own way, to learn what I really need and that I can trust. And I can listen to the voice of God in a more pure way. And when you really turn up the volume of that angle, you get to the point of where you start talking about it as, like, being this intimate connection to God.

[Tim Mackey]

That's right.

[John]

Falling in love with Yahweh and then it could prepare you to enter the land.

[Tim Mackey]

Yes. Yeah.

[John]

Yet all the stories in the Hebrew Bible of every character going through that end up not prepared to actually go into the land.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah, that's right. It's good. So the wilderness can have multiple functions. It can feel like punishment. Punishment. It can feel like sitting in the consequences of my own destructive decisions or others decisions. But it then can also be transformed into a refuge, intimate place where the suffering strips away the illusions that I can provide for myself, that I am in control. And it makes me learn that as Moses said in Deuteronomy 8, that humans don't actually live by the things that they provide for themselves like bread, but rather real life comes to us, whether in the garden or the wilderness, from the word of God that proceeds out of his mouth. And that's a lesson that God's covenant partners didn't learn in the story of the Hebrew Bible. And that's told within a story that begins with Genesis 1 through 11 that tells you all humanity keeps not learning that lesson outside of Eden. Which makes you wonder is okay, I guess, could there ever be a human who's outside of Eden who would learn that lesson and become the ideal human or the faithful covenant partner? I wonder. Yeah, that's the setup.

[John]

Can I ask though, then you can learn this in the garden and you can learn this in the wilderness. Yeah, right.

[Tim Mackey]

Yes.

[John]

So if you are the true faithful covenant partner, wouldn't you be learning it in the garden? Right. Isn't that the most faithful, beautiful way to learn this is to not have to go to the wilderness at all?

[Tim Mackey]

Sure.

[John]

It's the Adam who said, I'm not going to eat that. I'm going to go to you, God, for wisdom. Let's take a walk, God, help me out and let's stay in the garden. That's the most faithful human that is.

[Tim Mackey]

But the situation when Jesus comes onto the scene could be just that. Jesus as the God of Israel become human, could just enjoy a garden existence within his communion with the Father, but.

[John]

He'D be on his own spirit.

[Tim Mackey]

But there'd be all these people dying out there in the wilderness and Jesus would just be, well, sucks for them, but I've got a good thing going here. But what if the generosity and mercy of God was so great that God in the person of Jesus would join them in the leave the garden and suffer alongside those outside of Eden? Yeah, that's an interesting way to think of what is happening in the story we're about to read, actually. Oh, there's no better way to summarize the story we're about to read. Thank you for that.

[John]

Okay.

[Tim Mackey]

Okay. Matthew, chapter three. Okay. Matthew one and two is the genealogy of Jesus as the son of Abraham and the son of David. Then you get the stories of Jesus, his birth, his exiled Egypt and then coming back in the days of Herod, and then his family lands in Nazareth. That's at the end of Matthew 2. And then all of a sudden, just he's grown up. And we fast forward a few decades, and here we go. Matthew, chapter three. Now, in those days, Joannes the immerser arrived. Yoannes is how you.

[John]

You say John.

[Tim Mackey]

You say John in Greek, his Greek pronunciation. So Yohanan in Hebrew.

[John]

Okay.

[Tim Mackey]

Yohannes in Greek. And he's the baptizer, that is the immerser. So he arrived announcing, in the wilderness of Judea.

[John]

So he's in the wilderness Judea.

[Tim Mackey]

And, you know, it's so funny. There's just things you never look up until you think about it. I just looked up the phrase the wilderness of Udai. This is in Greek, Matthew's in Greek. And the phrase appears in only one time in the Hebrew Bible or the Greek Bible, which is. It's the heading of Psalm 63, a prayer of David when he was in the wilderness of Judea, fleeing from Saul. And it begins, my tongue is parched. My body longs for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

[John]

Oh, wow, cool.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah.

[John]

So he's out there announcing, the wilderness.

[Tim Mackey]

Of Jedea is where the king of Israel, the first mercy, real faithful king of Israel, spent a long period of testing in the wilderness. Yeah, that's the other time this phrase appears. So all of that is surely meant to be in our minds because this is going to be about another son of David coming onto the scene. And his entry point is in the wilderness of Judea.

[John]

Yeah. Where would this have been? Because Judea is in the hill country, right?

[Tim Mackey]

Oh, yes. Fair amount of debate. So if you go down kind of due east from Jerusalem, there's a highway now down into the Jordan Valley. It's right near where the Jordan Valley empties into what is now the Dead Sea.

[John]

Yeah, it's pretty dry there.

[Tim Mackey]

Super dry. Like one of the lowest points on the planet. It's a deep, deep ravine.

[John]

And this is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were in the Qumran community.

[Tim Mackey]

Yes. Which we'll talk about.

[John]

We'll get to it. Okay.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. The Gospel of John's portrait of where John is doing his Thing. And then where Matthew and Luke and Mark portray John doing his thing in the wilderness, Judea. And there's some tensions there about where exactly John was. We're not going to go into that right now. So he's just out there in the wilderness announcing repent, or in normal English, change your direction, go a different direction.

[John]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackey]

Because the kingdom of the skies has come near. So the arrival of God's kingdom.

[John]

Who's he talking to? There's other people out there with him.

[Tim Mackey]

Oh, you have to wait. You'll see in the corresponding panel here. Why was John out there doing this, saying this? Because this is what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet saying, quote, a voice calling in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord and make straight his paths. So this was a wilderness passage in the prophets that we didn't read in the previous conversation because there was no.

[John]

But we read it in the new Exodus conversation.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. This is from the opening paragraph of Isaiah 40, which is a key hinge text in the shape and structure of Isaiah the prophet.

[John]

And the wilderness here is referring to the wilderness between Babylon and Israel because they need to come back.

[Tim Mackey]

Right.

[John]

So there's gonna be a highway through it.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah.

[John]

And so that's the wilderness referred to.

[Tim Mackey]

Yep. So Isaiah 40 is an announcement that the exile, the wilderness of the nations. The wilderness of the nations, as Ezekiel called it, that it's fulfilled its purpose, then that the time is over. Now is the time of comfort. That's how Isaiah 40 opens. Comfort, comfort my people and tell her that the hard season is over and that in the wilderness there is a voice calling out saying, yahweh's coming back. So let's make a highway, a road through the wilderness, a road in the desert. And Yahweh is going to come back. And the glory of Yahweh will be revealed and all he humanity will see it. This is what Yahweh says. So there was this hope for return and the regathering of God's covenant people in the garden land, where a temple would be restored as a city on the hill and a light to the nations. This is Isaiah 60 and 42, 49. All that.

[John]

However, that voice of calling Israel back out of Babylon into the land, that happened already. Right.

[Tim Mackey]

Ah, okay. Well, this is interesting. So the shape of Isaiah makes you think that, oh, this is what happened a generation after the exile in Babylon.

[John]

Yeah. So somewhere in the got to come.

[Tim Mackey]

Back in the 500-00 B.C.

[John]

And then they rebuilt the temple.

[Tim Mackey]

That's right. And that's Zerubbabel and then Ezra and Nehemiah. And for sure, it seems that the people who returned from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, that they were fueled by the prophetic hopes like this that we read about in Isaiah. But then Isaiah itself registers the failure of those hopes and that Israel back in the land with the rebuilt temple was just as corrupt and idolatrous as they were before. Yeah. So whatever Isaiah 40 meant was something for even a yet future generation to hope for. Because now they're back in the land, but they may as well still be in the wilderness because things have not improved. Yeah. So Isaiah 40 still speaks a word of hope centuries later, like in the days of John the Immerser. So first you should know, John dressed like Elijah the prophet. He wore camel hair and an animal skin belt, and he ate insects and wild honey. He lived off the land. He's a wild man. He's living out in the heart. He's living in the wilderness. Yeah.

[John]

He made his home in the wilderness.

[Tim Mackey]

Yes. Yeah. And there came out to him the city of Jerusalem. Like, whoa, okay, that is the population, but all of Judea and the surrounding regions of the Jordan people coming from all over or coming out into the wilderness, and they were being immersed or baptized in the Jordan river, so there's some new information and confessing their sins, confessing their failures. So John has intentionally chosen the section of the Jordan river where Moses led the people right to the other side. And then Joshua crossed over with the people when they first came to enter the land. John chooses that spot to do this passing through the waters symbol. Ooh, okay, so he's in the wilderness, but then he's making people pass through the waters. Yeah. Remember that connection of water and wilderness we talked about man many conversations ago? From Genesis 1, verse 2, in the Garden of Eden story, the waters in the wilderness are opposite in terms of wilderness is a land without water. But they become parallel symbols of something deadly or dangerous. And when God leads people through the waters or through the wilderness, they both have a purifying effect. They're kind of like opposites that have the same symbolic meaning.

[John]

Right, okay. To get into the land, you go through the wilderness. To get into the land, you go through the waters.

[Tim Mackey]

That's right. Yeah. That's it. Yeah, that's it.

[John]

And they both prepare you.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah, I should have just said that.

[John]

No, no, I was just summarizing. No, what you said was helpful.

[Tim Mackey]

So that's John. Now one question is like, where's this guy coming from? Luke provides a bit of John's backstory. Yeah, he's a priest, the son of a priest. His parents are really well established Torah observant Israelites in Jerusalem. Lots of connections. So what's he doing out here? Why isn't he preparing for the priesthood?

[John]

Yeah, he's taking more of a prophetic role than a priestly role.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. Okay, so here's what is super interesting. This could be a long detour and we're not going to go down it. Are you daring me? I guess so. I guess so. So the Dead Sea Scrolls. Famous, very important discovery of ancient biblical and just manuscripts from a Jewish community that relocated from Jerusalem to the slopes of the Dead Sea on the western side of the Dead Sea. But in other words, in the hills and wilderness of Judea, in exactly the same region that Matthew marks as John being here. So these manuscripts came into public view in the 1940s. Fascinating story I will force myself not to retell, but it's so cool. And found in a number of caves in the slopes up above the Dead Sea. And these are exactly the hills and the types of caves that David was like hiding out in and fleeing from Saul in. But somewhere in the 150s BC, so 150 years before Jesus, there was a very tumultuous period of Jewish history that's told. We know about this from a number of records, the books of the Maccabees, Second Temple Jewish literature, and also the historian Josephus. And he tells a time where the Jerusalem priesthood and the Temple. The leadership of Jerusalem was a highly contested, fraught political religious cluster. And the high priesthood was essentially becoming a symbolic position that was available to the highest bidder. People were buying and selling the most important leadership positions.

[John]

Was this an era where they were not really being occupied? There was a bit of freedom.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. It was in the small window of Jewish independence in Jerusalem that was won by the Maccabees in the Maccabean Revolt.

[John]

So before Rome came. But it was the Persians who were then kicked out.

[Tim Mackey]

Well, it went Babylon, then Persia and Persia was around for a while until Alexander the Great swept the ancient world in the mid-3002. And then he divided up his kingdoms. Huge kingdom in what we call Asia and the Middle east today to all kinds of different regional rulers. And those handoffs were to a bunch of rulers in Syria, which is north of Jerusalem, and then to some Egyptian rulers in the south. And the Syrians and the Egyptians were constantly fighting each other. And Jerusalem was the contested middle ground in between them. So Jerusalem got taken over multiple times. And so the Maccabean revolt was like, enough. This is our ancestral city.

[John]

You both stay out.

[Tim Mackey]

And the Maccabeans kicked out the Syrians. And so it was, yeah, about 100ish years of Jewish independence. And in that time, the high priesthood became like a puppet roll that people were buying and selling.

[John]

What people?

[Tim Mackey]

Oh, Israelites. But you also had Israelites who were like, pro Greek culture, pro polytheism, or maybe they were pro God of Israel. But let's, you know, let's build some Greek gymnasiums and some hot baths and have some games in Jerusalem, like the Olympic Games. Maybe. Jews don't really need to eat kosher and be circumcised.

[John]

And these are. What are they? Leaders?

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah.

[John]

In what sense are they leaders?

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. So you have rival factions within the Israelite leadership in this time, some of whom are pro Greek culture. It's the new. It's what the kids are doing. Yeah, this is our future among the nations. And then you have the more traditional conservatives who were like, no, we're Israelites.

[John]

So what was the political system at that time like?

[Tim Mackey]

Oh, it was like a monarchy. So both the kingship and the high priesthood were often mixed together in this period.

[John]

And so the king would also be the high priest.

[Tim Mackey]

Mm. Yeah.

[John]

And so. Sorry, in what sense were people buying that off? Who was. If you're the king and the high priest, you're the one in charge. Whose money do you need?

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah, that's right. So it's a very complicated. Things were changing by the year. And you'd have people be a king and try and declare that they're also the high priest. And then people would rebel. Then you'd have a king who would say, all right, I'll have a right hand person. That's the high priest. But Israel is reinventing itself. Every few years there were assassinations and political coups. It's fascinating. This is the story told in the Maccabees. Books of the Maccabees. So during that period, there was a community of priests who traced their ancestry to the Zadokites. And they believed the whole thing was so corrupt that they withdrew into the very region where John is named Matthew. And they started this community. And they took a whole bunch of biblical scrolls with them. And then they also wrote a lot of their own literature. And one of the pieces of literature that was first discovered when the Dead Sea scroll surfaced is called the the Rule of the Community. It's a handbook for this community, and it tells a brief history of who they are. Why they did what they did, why they went where they went, and then what you have to do to be a part of the community. Super interesting. And there's a whole rabbit hole of like New Testament studies. But what is really interesting is if you read the opening paragraph to this founding document here. So I'm just going to sample the first paragraph. Okay, so now I'm kind of sticking my head in the rabbit hole that I said we're not going to go down.

[John]

Okay, just a peek.

[Tim Mackey]

All right, so this is talking about the leadership structure of this formerly priestly community. And they say in this community there will be a council of 12.

[John]

Yeah, makes sense.

[Tim Mackey]

So there's an alternative Israel down there in the wilderness. And then three priests that are to be perfect that is complete. Complete. It's the word Tamim in Hebrew or teleos. Perfect in everything that has been revealed from all of the Torah. Okay, so the weird.

[John]

We are going to do it, right?

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. They're starting a faithful Israel out in the wilderness. We are going to carry out truth and justice, judgment and compassionate love, humble behavior towards each other. We will preserve faithfulness in the land with a firm purpose and a spirit of repentance. Think of John in order to atone for sin by doing what is just and undergoing many tests. So you're like, well, this sounds like John the Baptist, doesn't it? We're going to retreat to the wilderness, start a faithful Israel that's repentant, and maybe we can be faithful to God in a way that will atone for the sins of Israel.

[John]

Okay, so you're saying the rabbit hole might lead to John, might have been in this tradition.

[Tim Mackey]

Okay, wait for it.

[John]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackey]

So later in the paragraph, when this has been established, the foundation of the community, and someone has two years of perfect behavior. So there's a two year initiation period for anybody who wants to join the community. Then that one will be separated like a holy one in the midst of the council of the men of the community. And then down in line 13, they are to be separated from within the dwelling of the men of sin. So they're separating themselves from sinful Israel to join this community, to walk into the desert in order to open up there his path. Whose path? As it is written in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord and straighten in the desert a roadway for our God. This is the study of the Torah that has been commanded through the hand of Moses.

[John]

Okay, so that was the text that they were holding up to.

[Tim Mackey]

So Isaiah 40 stood there like a script, waiting to be performed for a generation of Israel to go out into the desert and, like, reform a purified Israel that will.

[John]

To be a voice in the wilderness means to be the kind of Israelite who can go out into the wilderness and pass the test.

[Tim Mackey]

Yes, exactly. To do what our ancestors failed to do.

[John]

And in that way, you're preparing the way.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. So we're going to be a wilderness people, like the wilderness generation, where God came to live among them in the tabernacle.

[John]

Okay.

[Tim Mackey]

Because God favored the tabernacle before he ever chose the temple in Jerusalem. Yeah. So my point is, in New Testament scholarship, Dead Sea scroll scholarship, there's been a long discussion about John the Baptist's relationship to this group. Yeah, that makes sense, because this group was also really into water baptism as a symbol of purification.

[John]

Okay, I was wondering that.

[Tim Mackey]

Yep. This group was committed to celibacy, as were John and Jesus.

[John]

How do they. No kids.

[Tim Mackey]

Well, what seems like is that you had this community that was almost like what would later become a monastery in Christian tradition. But then the documents of the community also mentioned that there are lots of people in the community who live in towns and cities, so they're still attached to the community. Seemed like it was a broader movement that was like a sectarian movement.

[John]

You can go and live there, Be the monk, essentially.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah, or the priests.

[John]

Or the priests. But you could also be kind of attached to the community, but go live in the town or city.

[Tim Mackey]

That's right.

[John]

Okay.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. So there's a broader renewal movement that they're a part of.

[John]

I see.

[Tim Mackey]

But then, like, the hyper.

[John]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackey]

Devout ones are living in the wilderness, so. Well, we don't know. John the Baptist and Jesus are never mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it seems very likely they're miles from each other. Yeah, it seems very likely that John certainly would have known about. Been relationally connected in some way to this community.

[John]

Why doesn't this community ever show up in any way? In other words, in Jesus ministry, as he's traveling around, it doesn't feel like he's interfacing at all with this.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. This group.

[John]

This group.

[Tim Mackey]

That's a great question. So what we know about this group is they were not the ones in power. And so pharisees and sadducees, I.e. zadokites, who are in power in Jerusalem are the main people that Jesus interacts with. Yeah.

[John]

But then also the poor and the people all over. And there's never a sense of, like, any hints of this community or people part of this community or Jesus connected to this community.

[Tim Mackey]

But you could say the same. We know there were freedom fighter movements, and Jesus never interacts with any of them, except to recruit one to his disciples, Simon the Zealot. But there's no story of Jesus interacting with Zealot leaders because they were super withdrawn and so was this community.

[John]

How interesting would it be if there was a story of one of the disciples coming from this group?

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah, well, there is that story of the disciples of John come and ask Jesus, why don't you fast? Which the Qumran community, again from this rule, had really dedicated fasting practices. So it's not hard to imagine the disciples of John also having a connection to this community. But we don't know what we don't know.

[John]

We don't know what we don't know.

[Tim Mackey]

But there's such close family alignment and alignment of ideals and language. And Isaiah 40 was a big deal to both. So we could. And maybe we should do more on this in the future. There's so much to explore. It also explains why John has the reaction that he does when the next thing happens, which is Matthew 3. 7. When he saw many of the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming out to his baptism, he said to them, you are seed of the snake.

[John]

Yeah. There's a backstory here that we don't have.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. Clearly he has reason to dislike these people. But this is exactly the type of language that the Dead Sea scroll people use to describe the priests running.

[John]

The compromised priests.

[Tim Mackey]

Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. They call them the men of wickedness and the men of evil counsel and the wicked priests. That's what they're called in the Qumran literature. So this Pharisees are not an institutional power, but they are like a populist religious movement.

[John]

And the Qumran community thinks they are not going far enough.

[Tim Mackey]

Correct. Yeah. That they're not devoutly.

[John]

They're still compromised, but not as much as the Sadducees, who are fully compromised.

[Tim Mackey]

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Think of the fragmented nature of Christian communities in North America.

[John]

I don't know what you're talking about.

[Tim Mackey]

It's very similar type of power games here. The Sadducees is how we pronounce what in Greek is Zadokaios, which is the Greek pronunciation of the descendants of Zadok, which is a priestly lineage that goes back to David's time. So there were Zadokites among the Qumran community that had peeled off, and then there was Zadokites still participating in the Powers of Jerusalem. So the point is, these are investigators that come out to John to check out his immersion. And he calls them seed of the snake. And so he says, listen, who directed you to flee from the coming anger? He's borrowing language from Jeremiah and Ezekiel here. There's another wave of justice coming. So then produce fruit worthy of repentance, of a change in direction. Don't think that you can say to yourselves, what, we have Abraham as our father. Nah. God can raise up from these stones children from Abraham. The axe is at the root of the tree. We're reaching the point of no return. And every tree that doesn't produce good fruit going to be cut down and tossed into the fire. But I have immersed y' all in water for a change of direction. But there is one coming after me. He is mightier than me. In fact, I'm not even worthy to carry his sandal. And he will immerse you not in water, but in the Holy Spirit and fire. Whoa.

[John]

It's always been so confusing for me, but it's starting to, like, have new categories that are interesting.

[Tim Mackey]

There's coming a test. A great test is going to come upon Israel. This generation. You're about to face one of your greatest tests. And how you respond to the test before you will determine whether Israel will go through another cycle of being handed over to destruction.

[John]

So I'm out here in the wilderness, and I'm trying to get Israel to stop being compromised, to live faithfully by the Torah. And we're going to these extreme measures. We're going to do it. And I'm getting people. This is a revival movement.

[Tim Mackey]

Yep. Because God's heavenly rule, his kingdom. Yeah.

[John]

King of the skies has come.

[Tim Mackey]

It's come near. Yeah.

[John]

And this is drawing enough attention and getting enough people interested that the Sadducees and Pharisees come to check it out.

[Tim Mackey]

He's talking to them. All these words are directed.

[John]

So he says to them, look, you've gotta change direction, too. You gotta get in on this. And this is going down. There's something happening here. The ax is at the base of the tree, like it's about to happen. And you're interested and worried about me, what I'm doing with this water baptism thing. Like, there's someone else coming that you should really be paying attention to. And this water baptism thing is important, but there's, like, a different type of immersion that's gonna happen, which he calls the Holy Spirit and fire.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. An immersion in God's holy breath and fire. So holy breath is associated with God's holy presence that brings life and fire.

[John]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackey]

Which is all about testing and purification. So you can pass through the water, you can pass through the wilderness. And then yet another image in the prophets is passing through the fire.

[John]

Okay.

[Tim Mackey]

Which is the image of purification. It burns away what is frail so that what is enduring can pass through the flame. This is really important for the book of Isaiah.

[John]

So being thrown into the fire here is going through the wilderness, going through.

[Tim Mackey]

The water, going through the wilderness and going through the fire.

[John]

Because going through the fire was always a category for me of, like, final judgment.

[Tim Mackey]

It is an image of purging.

[John]

Yeah. But if it's an image of purging, then it's. But it's more like wilderness.

[Tim Mackey]

That's right. Yeah. In the prophets. In the prophets, God burning Israel to purify them is among. So the flood or the fire or the wilderness are all images in the prophets to talk about a purification process so that Israel can become the faithful representative and partner.

[John]

Yeah. This holy breath and this fire.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah, that's right. John is the voice preparing the way of Yahweh to come in the wilderness. John comes in the wilderness. He prepares the people. And then verse 13 of Matthew 3, then Jesus came. You know, like, wait, I thought Yahweh was coming. Prepare the way for Yahweh to come.

[John]

Okay.

[Tim Mackey]

And then Matthew says, and then Jesus came. Even just that little subtle, he's putting Jesus's arrival in the slot of the story in Isaiah 40, which is about Yahweh coming. So there Jesus arrived from up north in Galilee, down at the Jordan, to John to be baptized by him. You're like, wait a minute, I thought you're being baptized for a symbol of repentance and purification. Yeah. For Israel to be purified and say, we're sorry for all the histories of idolatry and unfaithfulness. And so verse 14 begins, a moment that's only found in Matthew's version of the baptism of Jesus. John tried to stop him. You don't need this saying, no, no, no, no, no. I'm a part of sinful Israel. I need to be baptized by you. Why are you coming to me? So John already has some understanding of Jesus, of who he is, but he already said that there's somebody coming that's more powerful. But Jesus responded by saying, no, allow it. Allow this right now. This is appropriate for us in order to fulfill all righteousness. Or maybe in my translation paraphrase, in order to fill full all doing right. And then John allowed him and baptized him. Why would Jesus need to be identified and participate in a symbol of repentance for Israel's sins? That's the puzzle of this little scene right here. Right.

[John]

And this is where we started the conversation is if Jesus is this faithful Israelite.

[Tim Mackey]

And again, this is Matthew. So we know from the genealogy he's the son of David, son of Abraham. He's the son of God through the Holy Spirit. We know that from the birth stories. Why would he.

[John]

Yeah. He could learn to live by the voice of God in the garden. He doesn't need to go to the wilderness.

[Tim Mackey]

Exactly. Yes.

[John]

And so this is John basically telling him that, like, look, you're good. You don't need to be out here in the wilderness with us. You don't need the baptism of repentance.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. Like, if anything, I watched you grow up. Yeah.

[John]

If anything, like, you should be doing it for us, for me and for all of us. And then Jesus says, actually, no, it's appropriate for me to get baptized in the same symbol of repentance.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah, yeah.

[John]

And that by me doing it fills up righteousness.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. So righteousness in Matthew primarily means doing right by God and doing right by God's images. That is my neighbor. And that's what Israel was called to do in the covenant. That's what Israel has failed to do.

[John]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackey]

And so left empty. Left empty. Yes. Israel's righteousness is empty. But what if the one coming who will immerse you in God's breath and purifying fire. What if that one were to join Israel in the wilderness and repent on Israel's behalf, identify himself with the sins of his people. That would be an amazing act of generosity. We're already seeing here a pattern that begins here. We have Jesus identifying with the weakness and frailty and suffering and sin of his people.

[John]

This is Jesus entering the wilderness.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. So he goes into the wilderness, and then he goes into the waters in the wilderness.

[John]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackey]

Which is all about a passage through the dangerous disorder.

[John]

And to be in the wilderness means you did something wrong.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah, yeah.

[John]

And to.

[Tim Mackey]

Oh, good. That's right.

[John]

Go through the wilderness. And some sort of baptism means you're repenting of that wrong thing.

[Tim Mackey]

Yes, that's right. The wilderness is what purifies you to be ready to inherit the garden land. Yeah, that's right. So we're seeing the pattern that will replay itself in the next story, which is Jesus voluntarily giving up his divine dignity and power and honor to bow low, so to speak, and identify with unfaithful people you're talking about.

[John]

So the next set of stories where he gets tested in the wilderness.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. But even the idea begins here. But the idea begins here in the baptism. Yeah.

[John]

That's interesting.

[Tim Mackey]

Why do you need to be baptized? As a symbol of purification and as a symbol of repentance. To say we're sorry for not being your faithful covenant partners. Jesus has nothing to repent of in the presentation of the story.

[John]

Yeah. I think it's interesting that to go through the waters of repentance for John and his crew is a symbol of re entering the land. Repentance to re. Enter the land. And Jesus comes and he says, I'm going to do this thing with you. Because actually, like, I'm kind of the. I mean, this is subtext, I guess, or like us applying some meaning here. You guys actually can't do this.

[Tim Mackey]

That's right. You're in the frame of the whole biblical story and the way we'll probably think about the video. Yeah, yeah. I'm here to do the thing that you can't seem to do.

[John]

And you're doing it so that you can re. Enter the land. But I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it. To enter into the wilderness.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah.

[John]

And show you what it looks like to pass the test in the wilderness.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah, that's right.

[John]

And be the kind of person that God can work with in the wilderness.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. John is replaying a Joshua moment. Let's go back. Re enter the land.

[John]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackey]

And it's almost like Jesus is saying, no, we're going to replay.

[John]

We're going to do a Moses moment.

[Tim Mackey]

A Moses moment.

[John]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackey]

Of going through the waters of sea, the waters of death. Because there's another wilderness on the other side of these waters for Jesus. So the next moment in the story is after being baptized, Jesus comes up out of the water. We've meditated on this moment many, many times over the years. This is a very, very important story. The skies are opened up and you're like, oh, the skies are the source of God's kingdom that has come down now. The skies are the source of God's spirit coming down. You're like, wait, that's the Holy Spirit that this guy's gonna bring. So we're kind of. Now we're watching Jesus have a special moment connected with the spirit. You're like, oh, this is what John said was gonna happen. The spirit of God came down like a dove, like a bird. Yeah. Which has echoes of Genesis 1, verse 2. The hovering the Spirit hovering like a bird. And of after the flood, Noah sending out the dove to hover over the waters to look for dry land. So as the spirit coming down on him is coordinated with a voice coming down speaking from the skies, that announces three things about the identity of Jesus. One is, this is my son. That's a line from Psalm 2, the beloved one. That phrase is from Genesis 22, speaking about Abraham's beloved son, Isaac, in whom I have delight. And that's a line from Isaiah 40 to about the figure called the servant in the poetry of Isaiah. And actually, I'm just going to highlight the Isaiah servant image. The whole point of the servant in Isaiah 40:55 especially, is about replaying the stories of Israel's failure. And Isaiah, even in 41, 42, highlights Israel's failure in the wilderness. But God will raise up a servant who will be a humble, trusting, obedient leader for the people of Israel to do for Israel, for his people what they can't do for themselves. Which leads to, in the famous suffering servant poems, him suffering and identifying so much with the sins of his people that he'll die their death on their behalf. And you can already begin to see that portrait of Jesus right here, that he is identifying with them in their weakness, in their unfaithfulness, and in their sins. But yet he is also this king from the line of David. Psalm 3. That's the son. Yep. This is my son.

[John]

The beloved one's about being the son who's sacrificed.

[Tim Mackey]

Yeah. Who's offered up for the sins of his father, in this case, for the sins of their ancestor. Whereas Isaac.

[John]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackey]

Genesis 22, with Isaac and Isaac dying for the sins of his father. Yeah. But then God provides a ram as a substitute. So the point is that this little voice from God is identifying Jesus as a royal son of David who will bring the promises of Abraham to their fulfillment by identifying and suffering for his people. And already you can see that hint to that in the exchange. So he just passed through the waters, and we know that he's going to bring a passage through wind and fire. That's what John said. But another coordinated image from Genesis is passing through the wilderness. And we're gonna find out that passing through the fire for Jesus is a reference forward to the ordeal that we call the Passion.

[John]

Oh, that's his fire. That's the fire he brings is the fire he goes through.

[Tim Mackey]

Yes. Yeah, totally. That's right. And what he's gonna do in the very next story is go through the wilderness on Israel's behalf. So we should look at that story next.

[John]

Deal. Thanks for listening to this episode of BibleProject Podcast. Next week we'll look at three tests that Jesus undergoes in the wilderness.

[Tim Mackey]

Jesus trusts that God will provide for his daily needs. He also chooses not to force his Father's hand or make the father prove that he's going to protect his life. He also trusts that God will fulfill his destiny as the Divine Son to become the ruler of the world.

[John]

Bibleproject is a crowdfunded nonprofit. We exist to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And everything that we create is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.

[Chloe/Oliver/Johanna (BibleProject team members)]

My name is Chloe and I'm from Portland. My name is Oliver and I am from Portland. I first heard about Bible Project from my parents. I first heard about Bible Project from a friend And I use BibleProject to understand God's word better. I use BibleProject to learn about Jesus. My favorite part about BibleProject is to do the shows and to be with Sam and Packer and all the dogs. We believe that the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. Bibleproject is a nonprofit funded by people like me. Find free videos, articles, podcasts, classes and more on the Bibleproject app [e-mail] thank you. Hi, my name is Johanna and I'm on the finance team where I handle the logistics of our merchandise and distribution. I've been working at Babbel Project for three years and one of my favorite parts of working here is the culture and community. There is a whole team of people that make the podcast come to life every week. For a full list of everyone who's involved, check out the end of the episode and the show credits wherever you stream the podcast and on our app.

[Tim Mackey]

SA.