owever, Christ instructs John the Baptist to ?give in for now ? (Matthew 3:15). From this, the argument arises that if Jesus was sinless why was it He had to be baptized and repent His sins? The Jerome Biblical Commentary points out that the dialogue between John the Baptist and Jesus is not found in the accounts of either Mark or Luke and proposes that it is an addition by Matthew because ?it was necessary to explain how Jesus could submit to a rite of repentance and confession of sin .? Berkouwer has a more fuller explanation saying ?Christ was obedient to the divine law in precisely this manner ... To this law Christ was already subject in his circumcision and in his presentation in the temple and in nothing was he distinguished from the other children of his [i.e., the Jewish] people. ?He was born of a woman, born under the law? (Gal. 4:4) ?. In other words, Jesus was simply fulfilling the Judaic law and being a good Jew. Like all other Jews of His time, He was keeping the precepts and following the rules. It was not an attempt to deny his holiness or to claim that He was sinful. It was simply a rite of passage. Had He not followed through with the baptism it is possible that Jesus would have been condemned by the Jewish leaders and banned from the Temple.Therefore, we can see that the baptism of Jesus does not carry any weight as an attempt to prove the peccability of Jesus.Berkouwer?s third unique approach of the peccability of Jesus is based on Hebrews 5:7-8. In this passage we are told by the apostolic author that ?[Jesus] learned obedience from what he suffered.? This statement has lead people (at least according to Berkouwer) to question if there was ?a stage in which Christ was not yet obedient ... a stage antedating Christ?s obedience.? In countering this argument Berkouwer points out that Hebrew 5 is related precisely to the suffering of Christ in Gethsemani ? where Christ is tempted to derail the divine plan, His cross, de...
