“The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
make the way of the Lord ready!
Make his paths straight!”
4Now John himself wore clothing made of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.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 being 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.