Matthew 3:15 is the fifteenth verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 has come to John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

 to be baptized, but John balked saying that he should be the one baptized. In this verse Jesus explains why it is he that should be baptized.

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

And Jesus answering said unto him,

Suffer it to be so now: for thus

it becometh us to fulfil all

righteousness. Then he suffered him

The World English Bible

World English Bible

The World English Bible is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 and was known as the American Standard Version 1997...

 translates the passage as:

But Jesus, answering, said to him,

"Allow it now, for this is the

fitting way for us to fulfill all

righteousness." Then he allowed him.

For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 3:15

These are the first words spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. Since traditionally the Gospel of Matthew is placed as the first book of the New Testament, these are the first words spoken by Jesus in the entire Bible. However they are not very well known or much quoted. Scholars have paid considerable attention to them, mainly because of their vagueness.

Like the previous verse this one only occurs in Matthew. Many scholars see this section as an add-on attempting to explain why the messiah is baptized by someone much lower than he is. The phrase "fulfill all righteousness" is a problematic one. Righteousness

Righteousness

Righteousness is an important theological concept in Zoroastrianism, Hinduism , Judaism, Christianity and Islam...

 is an important concept in Matthew and it generally means obedience to God. Matthew also often uses the word fulfill, with it almost always referring to an Old Testament prophecy that Jesus is fulfilling. Hill notes that the phrase could thus be interpreted as Jesus fulfilling divine rules of which only he is aware. Cullman emphasizes the word all and argues that Jesus' baptism is to obtain righteousness for all humanity. Harrington links the fulfillment not to the Old Testament but to the discussion of fruits of repentance at Matthew 3:8

Matthew 3:8

Matthew 3:8 is the eighth verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The verse occurs in where John the Baptist is berating the Pharisees and Sadducees...

.

A second important issue is why Jesus, who is sin

Sin

In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...

less, should go through a ritual that is designed to cleanse all sins. There are two main explanations of this. One is that Jesus by being baptized is setting a good example for the rest of humanity, that while he does not himself need the cleansing he is showing how important it is for others. The second view is that Jesus' being baptized is part of the process of taking on the burden of the sins of all humanity.