"TO FULFILL ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS": WHAT DID JESUS MEAN?

According to Matthew, this last of the prophets (11:9-15) came preaching in the wilderness of Judea (3:1), announcing himself as the messianic forerunner predicted in Isaiah 40:3. According to Davies and Allison, "The most convincing approach to the difficult phrase ... refers to Jesus fulfilling prophecy. The messianic passages typically cited are vague and general, referring at most to the important theophany that occurred after the baptism.12 As Turner acknowledges, Matthew "says nothing about the baptism itself," but instead "passes over the baptism of Jesus quickly in order to stress two attest- ing events that pertain to biblical fulfillment: the heavenly vision (3:16) and the heavenly voice (3:17). Was the baptism itself "a key event in unfolding everything that will eventually be entailed in rightly relating the world to God"?16 The attesting events that followed the baptism meet such criteria, but is there anything in Matthew's account to suggest that he attributed this sort of messianic import to the baptism itself?