BenFTW said: The better question would be to ask, why not? For what reason would you
not get baptized, considering it was a command given (by Jesus to make disciples)?
If Jesus himself got baptized, why should we not also?
Matthew 3:15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
Mark 14:49 Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.”
Luke 24:44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you:
Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
Luke 22:37 It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”
Acts 3:18 But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer.
Jesus has to fulfill all of the requirements of the old covenant and what was prophesied by the prophets in order to complete the old scriptures. But Jesus just told John to go ahead so that He can complete the task of the prophecies. If you browse all through the four gospel, Jesus always saying that He has to fulfill these tasks. If they weren't fulfill and which that would meant that the prophets were liars. And so the washing with water was a ritual that they had practiced to prepared themselves before the arrival of the King. And now it is a new covenant that we are under, that has new prophesies about to take place in the future. But this time it going to be discerned by the spirit, not like the old that has done it by the natural.
Psalm 69:21 They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.
John 19:28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”
Isaiah 55:1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Esther 2:9 She pleased him and won his favor. Immediately he provided her with her beauty treatments and special food. He assigned to her seven
female attendants selected from the king’s palace and moved her and her attendants into the best place in the harem.
Luke 7:46 You did not put oil on my head, but
she has poured perfume on my feet.