1This is the third time I am coming to you. “At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” 2I have warned previously, and I warn again, as when I was present the second time, so now, being absent, I write to those who have sinned before now and to all the rest that if I come again, I will not spare, 3seeing that you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me who is not weak, but is powerful in you. 4For he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives through the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we will live with him through the power of God toward you.
5Examine your own selves, whether you are in the faith. Test your own selves. Or don’t you know about your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. 6But I hope that you will know that we aren’t disqualified.
7Now I pray to God that you do no evil; not that we may appear approved, but that you may do that which is honorable, though we may seem to have failed. 8For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. 9For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. We also pray for this: your becoming perfect. 10For this cause I write these things while absent, that I may not deal sharply when present, according to the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down.
11Finally, brothers, rejoice! Be perfected. Be comforted. Be of the same mind. Live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. 12Greet one another with a holy kiss.
13All the saints greet you.
14The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s love, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Matthew's account of Jesus' baptism is highly significant as the Bible's first explicit reference to God in three persons. Until the Son of God came as a man to make the Father known (John 1:18), plurality in the Godhead was largely veiled. Hints are found in passages such as Genesis 1:26, "Then God said, 'Let Us make man... '" (NAU). Though God is singular, the verb make is plural. Similarly, in Isaiah 6:8, God speaks of himself with a plural pronoun: "'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?'" (NAU). In Zechariah 4:6, God speaks of His Spirit as a distinct person. Deuteronomy 6:4 emphasizes God's oneness, in contrast with the many heathen gods, but does so with a word for one that can denote a unity, such as the oneness of a husband and wife (Gen 2:24). But, none of these passages is specific like those of the New Testament that mention all three persons of God, beginning with Matthew 3:16-17, and including 28:19; 1 Corinthians 12:4-6; 2 Corinthians 13:14, and 1 Peter 1:2.
The Holy Spirit's descent upon Jesus at His baptism was His anointing as the promised Messiah and Servant of Yahweh in fulfillment of Isaiah 11:2. Verses 13-15, of Matthew 3, clarify the fact that Jesus was not baptized as a repentant sinner, or as a mere follower of John. Matthew 3:17 indicates not a time when Jesus became the Father's Son, but the fact that he was already his son. This record of the simultaneous presence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit corrects the error of modalism which, in an attempt to preserve the unity of the Godhead, views Father, Son and Holy Spirit not as distinct persons of God, but as different modes in which the one person of God reveals Himself.