If Jesus’s baptism is seen as his
identification with Israel in her sin, then this ‘baptism’ (‘made . . to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might
become the righteousness of God’, 2 Cor. 5.21) represents the completion of the
identification and its extension to all mankind. (Colin E. Gunton, Yesterday
and Today: A Study of Continuities in Christology [London: Darton, Longman
and Todd, 1983], 99)