Your
identity as a Christian is intimately bound up with the identity
of Jesus Christ. Who
He is determines who you are.
Jesus’ identity and your identity go together.
So
who exactly is Jesus Christ? The
answer to that question determines who you are as a child of God.
To say the least, it’s an important question.
The answer to that question is important too.
Holy
Scripture makes it very plain that Jesus is the Son of God.
We read in the Gospel how John the Baptist said of Jesus, I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.
Nathanael confesses of Jesus: Rabbi,
You are the Son of God! You are the King of
Israel
!
When Jesus’ disciples saw His power over the forces
of nature, and how He calmed with a word the storm that threatened
to sink their boat, they cried out, Truly
you are the Son of God! At
Caesarea Philippi Simon Peter declared of Jesus, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
The Roman centurion, when he saw how Jesus died,
and how the heavens grew dark and the earth quaked when He gave up
His spirit, acknowledged, Truly,
this Man was the Son of God.
But
it’s not just human testimony that declares Jesus is the Son of
God. Surprisingly, the
demons of hell acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God when He cast
them out of the people they afflicted.
The angel Gabriel called Jesus the Son of God when he
appeared to the Virgin May to announce that she would miraculously
conceive. And even God
the Father Himself publicly testifies that Jesus is His unique,
only-begotten Son.
God
the Father continues to testify to Jesus’ divine status as His
Son whenever the Bible, which speaks of Jesus’ divinity, is read
in the Divine Service. This
follows the pattern established in the Bible.
The Father testified that Jesus was His Son on the Mount of
Transfiguration. There,
when Jesus’ human nature was glorified by the radiance of His
divine nature, the Father spoke from heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I
am well-pleased. Listen
to Him! And
today’s Gospel tells us that the Father testified about Jesus’
identity when our Lord was baptized at the beginning of His
earthly ministry. The
heavens opened, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form
of a dove, and the Father’s voice from heaven declared:
You are my beloved Son; in You I am well-pleased.
So
we have human testimony to Jesus as the Son of God.
We have demonic and angelic testimony.
And we have God the Father’s testimony, that this Jesus
of Nazareth is His only begotten Son, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance
with the Father. The
holy Christian Church, in her creeds and hymns, also confesses
these things about Jesus. The
Church has been taught to confess them, by God Himself, in the
God-breathed, God-inspired Scriptures.
Flesh and blood has not revealed this, but Jesus’ Father
in heaven. Truly this Man is the Son of God.
That’s
why in today’s Gospel John the Baptist decisively squashed any
speculation that he himself was the Christ, the Son of God.
Not me, but Jesus, John
says. For Jesus is the
One mightier than John, whose coming had been promised immediately
after Adam and Eve broke God’s commandment not to eat from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
As God Incarnate, Jesus is the One whose sandal strap John
was not worthy to unloose. Jesus
is the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire,
because He was anointed with the Spirit in His Baptism, and He
would experience the fire of God’s wrath over human sin when He
hung on the Cross to take away the iniquity of the world.
It
would be Jesus who would do these things, not John.
John was raised up by God to be the forerunner, to testify
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the world’s Savior
from sin, death, and hell. Not
me, John says, but Jesus. He’s the One.
And
so all Christian preaching is the preaching of Christ, the Son of
God. For Jesus Christ
alone is God in the flesh, revealed at His Baptism as the One who
saves us poor sinners from the guilt and punishment of our
wrongdoing. All
Christian preaching points to Him as the One who fulfilled all
righteousness on behalf of us who, because of our sinful nature,
have fulfilled all unrighteousness.
All Christian preaching directs us to Christ, for He alone
is mighty to save us from the wrath of God, from the evil clutches
of the devil, and the hell we all deserve.
All Christian preaching is Gospel preaching.
It is therefore the power of God for the salvation
of everyone who believes – for everyone who trusts not
in themselves, not in any goodness of their own, but exclusively
in Jesus Christ, who died for sin and was raised again.
For in Jesus alone is the forgiveness of sin extended to
our fallen human race.
Jesus
was a Son who learned obedience by the things He suffered, the
book of Hebrews says. What
exactly did Jesus suffer? He
suffered hunger and deprivation in the wilderness as He resisted
the Tempter. He
suffered the scorn and persecution of men.
He suffered the piercing agonies of crucifixion, and His
Father’s condemning wrath over sins that were not His own. He
did it all for you. And
in suffering all these things, and in His obedient submission to
His Father’s will that He suffer in your place, Jesus
accomplished the work of your salvation.
He did everything necessary to win complete forgiveness for
all your sins. I
therefore can confidently tell you that your sins are forgiven
because of Jesus’ perfect obedience, and because of His
suffering and death on the Cross.
You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased,
the Father declared at Jesus’ Baptism.
Begotten of the Father before all worlds, conceived by the
Holy Spirit and born in time, Jesus is Son of God according to His
divine nature. The
Father loves Him, and is pleased with Him, and at His Baptism
commissioned Him to save you from everlasting death.
That’s
who Jesus is. He is
the Son of God. He is
the Christ. He is the
only Savior from sin and hell.
Jesus is the One who gives you your true eternal identity
and destiny as a beloved child of God for His sake.
As
I said earlier, who Jesus is determines who you are.
And that brings us to the second half of the equation.
The Scripture says, You
are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
For
as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Your
Baptism changes everything. No
longer are you an enemy of God, a child of wrath, which was your
status before God graciously brought you to faith in His Son.
You are now a son of God through faith in Christ Jesus, the
Son of God. God the
Father has graciously welcomed you into His family because of
Jesus. In love, He
predestined you before the foundation of the world to be adopted
as His son through Jesus Christ.
It doesn’t matter if you are male
or female. It
doesn’t matter if you are young or old.
It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor.
God has adopted you as a son who receives, by grace,
through faith, the full inheritance of Jesus’ forgiveness, mercy
and salvation. All of
you out there who trust in Jesus are sons of God through faith,
because through your Baptism into Christ, you have put on Christ.
You have been clothed with His perfect righteousness to
cover the nakedness of your unrighteousness.
You have put on the garments of His salvation.
You are forgiven. You
are free. You are a
child of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
St. John
writes in his first epistle: Behold
what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should
be called children of God! The
Father loved you and predestined you for adoption into His family.
At the Baptismal font is where He made that adoption official.
Therefore, He now says of you what He said of Jesus: You
are My beloved son, in you I am well pleased.
In the Gospel, God takes sinners and makes them His
beloved sons. That’s
what He has declared you to be.
You are His true child and He is your true Father.
And so you call upon Him, praying, Our
Father. . . You
call Him your Father because of Jesus, the Son of God.
Truly, you are a child of God for
Jesus’ sake. Now go
forth in faith and live as God’s child.
At His Baptism, Jesus was declared to be Son of God
according to His divine nature.
He immediately went forth into the wilderness to be tempted
by the devil and to do His Father’s will. You went forth from
the Baptismal font into the wilderness of this world, to face
temptation and to do your Father’s will too.
You are baptized. Strive
to hallow God’s Name, by hearing the Word of God taught in its
truth and purity and by leading a holy life according to that
Word. And know that in
His Word and Sacraments, your Savior Jesus stands by you.
He stands by you to strengthen you in the temptations you
face. He stands by you
to instruct you through His Word how to live a life pleasing to
God. He stands by you
to forgive you and lift you up when you stumble and fall.
So live as the child of God the
Father has declared you to be for Jesus’ sake.
Feed not upon earthly bread alone but upon every Word
proceeding from the mouth of God.
Partake regularly of the Sacrament of Jesus’ Body and
Blood. Strengthened by
the help of the Holy Spirit placed upon you in Baptism, strive to
keep the Ten Commandments as your guide to the life that God would
have His children lead. And
do it in the joyful recognition of who you are in Christ Jesus.
For the sake of Jesus, Son of God by nature, you are a son
of God by adoption. You
have the forgiveness of all your sins.
You have life eternal.
You have the hope of resurrection on the last day.
You have an identity, given to you in holy Baptism, that
the devil can never snatch away.
You are a child of God.
In Nomine Patris. . .
