Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit

Was the Lord Jesus Christ without the Holy Spirit before being baptized by Saint John the Baptist?

Certainly not. Because what happened on the feast of the Theophany is a divine revelation that God is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Yes, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. They are one God and not three gods. There is no difference between them in time and none of them existed before the other.

Let us give an example. When we light a candle, we see one flame, but at the same time, there is light, fire, and heat. There is a functional differentiation between them, but they are one.

At the moment when the Lord Jesus came out of the water, the voice of the Father was heard, and the Holy Spirit appeared like a dove, and it was the first appearance of the Holy Trinity in the New Testament.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the Only Son of God who became a person by Incarnation without losing anything of His divinity. He did not need baptism, but He did it for our sake. Saint John the Baptist told him: “I need to be baptized by you, and you are coming to me!” (Matthew 14:3-15).

But what did the Lord mean by his answer: "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness"?

Answer: Through His Baptism, Jesus established the sacrament of baptism by which we become a new creation and receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. In fact, Jesus IS Righteousness; “Let us become, we shall be the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 21:5), says Saint Paul.

Jesus took away our sins, that is, he carried them.

Let us note the following: When John saw Jesus coming to him, he said: “Behold, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 29:1). No one can take away the sin of the world except the One who forgives sins, that is, God Himself.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the lamb slaughtered voluntarily for our salvation. Therefore, He said to the Jews: “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He” (John 28:8).

In the first verse, the Lord “takes away” our sins αἴρων comes from the verb of αίρω, meaning “to assume”; he “carries them” and “wipes them out”. In the second verse, “you lift up” ὑψώσητε from the verb Υψόνω that is, “to lift something high”. In the verse here refers to the Crucifixion.

Jesus “lifted” the sins of the world and carried them because he is the Savior of whom all the prophets spoke and whom humanity was expecting.

The name of Jesus in Hebrew is “YHWH Sha'”: I AM Who Saves.