The sinless Son comes to the water to fulfill all righteousness, and heaven answers: the Spirit as a dove, and the Father’s voice naming his Son.
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The reading is the Joseph Smith Translation, in the text of the Covenant Christian Edition, carried beside each Gospel and set against the King James baseline. Headers give both numbering systems: the CCE chapter and verse, and the traditional KJV reference.
13And then came Jesus from Galilee to Jordan, unto John, to be baptized of him. 14But John forbad refused him, saying, I have need to be baptized of you, and why do you come to me? 15And Jesus, answering, said unto him, Suffer it to be so now Suffer me to be baptized of you, for thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And John went down into the water and baptized him. 16And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up immediately out of the water. And John saw, and behold, the Heavens were opened unto him. And he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him Jesus. 17And behold, he heard a voice from Heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.
9And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized of John in Jordan. 10And immediately coming up out of the water, he saw the Heavens opened and the spirit like a dove descending upon him. 11And there came a voice from Heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased You are my Son; this day I have begotten you. And John bore record of it.
21Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also came unto John. And being baptized of him and praying, the Heaven was opened 22and the holy ghost descended in bodily shape like a dove upon him. And a voice came from Heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.
29The next day, John sees Jesus coming unto him, and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 30And John bore record of him unto the people, saying, This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me, and I knew him not I knew him, 31and that he should be made manifest to Israel. Therefore have I come baptizing with water. 32And John bore record, saying, When he was baptized of me, I saw the spirit descending from Heaven like a dove, and it abided upon him. 33And I knew him not I knew him, for he who sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom you shall see the spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he who baptizes with the holy ghost. 34And I saw and bore record that this is the Son of God.
In the Gospel of John the Baptist says, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him” (John 1:32). A revelation given to Joseph Smith quotes more of John’s record of the same moment: the heavens opened, the Holy Ghost came down in the form of a dove, the voice from heaven named the Son, and John bore record that he received “a fullness of the glory of the Father.”
And I, John, bear record and lo, the Heavens were opened, and the holy ghost descended upon him in the form of a dove and set upon him. And there came a voice out of Heaven saying, This is my Beloved Son.
And I, John, bear record that he received a fullness of the glory of the Father. And he received all power, both in Heaven and on earth, and the glory of the Father was with him, for he dwelt in him.
The fifth of the Lectures on Faith, given at Kirtland in the winter of 1834–35 and printed in 1835 as the first part of the Doctrine and Covenants, asks in its catechism why Jesus is called the Son, and cites Matthew 3:16–17 as a proof. It is a proof text, not an exposition of the baptism. It is shown for one reading: where the King James Version says only that “he saw the Spirit of God,” the lecture adds “[John],” which is how the JST reads verse 16 (“And John saw”). (The 1835 printing cites Luke 1:33 for Luke 1:35.)
Lectures on Faith, Lecture Fifth, question 11, in Doctrine and Covenants (Kirtland, 1835), p. 57 · canonized in the CCE as Teachings and Commandments 110 · Joseph Smith Papers ↗Also recorded in Teachings and Commandments 110, Lecture 5:17.
Q. Why was he called the Son? A— Because of the flesh. Luke 1:33. That holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.—Math. 3:16, 17. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straitway out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he [John] 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 am well pleased.
In an editorial on baptism, Joseph Smith reasoned that every righteous person (Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses) came into God’s presence by keeping his commandments and ordinances; and so, he wrote, even the sinless Son:
Editorial, “Baptism,” Times and Seasons, 1 September 1842 (3:902–905); Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 266 · Joseph Smith Papers ↗…or whether it was Jesus Christ himself, who had no need of repentance, having no sin, according to his solemn declaration to John: “Now let me be baptized, for no man can enter the kingdom without obeying this ordinance; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” Surely, then, if it became John and Jesus Christ, the Savior, to fulfil all righteousness to be baptized — so surely, then, it will become every other person that seeks the kingdom of heaven to go and do likewise; for he is the door, and if any person climbs up any other way, the same is a thief and a robber!
In the former ages of the world, before the Savior came in the flesh, the saints were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ to come, because there never was any other name whereby men could be saved; and after he came in the flesh and was crucified, then the saints were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, crucified, risen from the dead, and ascended into heaven — that they might be buried in baptism like him, and be raised in glory like him; that as there was but one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of us all, even so there was but one door to the mansions of bliss.
A week after his discourse on John and the kingdom, Joseph Smith answered a question it had raised, naming, among the reasons John was the greatest of prophets, that John baptized the Son of God and beheld the sign of the dove. (Excerpted here; the full discourse also treats John’s greatness and the parable of the Prodigal Son.)
Discourse, 29 January 1843, Nauvoo · History, 1838–1856, vol. D-1, 1457–58 · Joseph Smith Papers ↗Who ever led the Son of God into the waters of baptism and had the privilege of beholding the Holy Ghost descend in the form of a dove, or rather in the sign of the Dove, in witness of that administration?
The sign of the Dove was instituted before the creation of the world, a witness for the Holy Ghost, and the Devil cannot come in the sign of a dove. The Holy Ghost is a Personage and is in the form of a personage. It does not confine itself to the form of a Dove but in sign of a Dove.
The Holy Ghost cannot be transformed into a Dove, but the sign of the Dove was given to John to signify the truth of the deed, as the Dove is an emblem or token of truth and innocence.
Barker’s work on the first-temple cult illuminates the CCE’s burgundy reading. The voice at the Jordan speaks the words of Psalm 2:7, the ancient enthronement formula by which the Davidic king was “begotten” as the divine son among the angels of the Holy of Holies. She also shows that this, not “Thou art my beloved Son,” is what the oldest text of Luke recorded: exactly the reading the CCE restores.
Unlike Mark and Matthew, the earliest texts of Luke give Psalm 2.7: “You are my son. Today I have begotten you” as the words heard at the baptism. That Jesus became the son of God at his baptism created obvious difficulties, and the later versions of Luke’s Gospel were brought into agreement with the account in Mark and Matthew: “You are/This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.”
The Old Greek translation… says that he was begotten as a son of God. Part of the text once read, “In the glory of thy holy ones I have begotten you.” The king had been born as an angel among the angels in the Holy of Holies… Psalm 2 records that when the king was set on Mount Zion, he heard the words, “You are my son, today I have begotten you,” and the angels in the Holy of Holies welcomed the birth of the new angels by singing, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…” (Is. 9:6).
Jesus was named Son of God at his baptism — and there is much evidence to show that Jesus understood his baptism as his own experience of resurrection, the moment when he was anointed with the Spirit. This opens the way into an immensely complex pattern of imagery and into early Christian baptismal practices, which also derived from this temple ritual, and included the bishop saying: “You are my Son. I have this day begotten you.”
Ellipses mark omissions within Barker’s own sentences.