Matthew 3:14

διεκώλυεν : imperfect, pointing to a persistent (note the διὰ) but unsuccessful attempt to prevent. His reason was a feeling that if either was to be baptised the relation ought to be inverted. To understand this feeling it is not necessary to import a fully developed Messianic theology into it, imputing to the Baptist all that we believe concerning Jesus as the Christ and the sinless one. It is enough to suppose that the visitor from Galilee had made a profound moral impression on him by His aspect and conversation, and awakened thoughts, hopes, incipient convictions as to who He might be. Nor ought we to take too seriously the Baptist's statement: “I have need to be baptised of Thee”. Hitherto he had had no thought of being baptised himself. He was the baptiser, not one feeling need to be baptised; the censor of sinners, not the sympathetic fellow-sinner. And just here lies the contrast between John and Jesus, and between the Christ of John's imagination and the Christ of reality. John was severe; Jesus was sympathetic. John was the baptiser of sinners; Jesus wished to be baptised, as if a sinner Himself, a brother of the sinful. In the light of this contrast we are to understand the baptism of Jesus. Many explanations of it have been given (for these, vide Meyer), mostly theological. One of the most feasible is that of Weiss (Matt.-Evan.), that in accordance with the symbolic significance of the rite as denoting death to an old life and rising to a new, Jesus came to be baptised in the sense of dying to the old natural relations to parents, neighbours, and earthly calling, and devoting Himself henceforth to His public Messianic vocation. The true solution is to be found in the ethical sphere, in the sympathetic spirit of Jesus which made Him maintain an attitude of solidarity with the sinful rather than assume the position of critic and judge. It was impossible for such an one, on the ground of being the Messiah, or even on the ground of sinlessness, to treat John's baptism as a thing with which He had no concern. Love, not a sense of dignity or of moral faultlessness, must guide His action. Can we conceive sinlessness being so conscious of itself, and adopting as its policy aloofness from sinners? Christ's baptism might create misunderstanding, just as His associating with publicans and sinners did. He was content to be misunderstood.