"The Beloved”
[Matthew 3:1-17]
January 9, 2011 Second Reformed Church
Today, we remember the Baptism of Jesus. For the first thirty years of Jesus’ Life, He worked with Joseph in the carpentry business. During the same time, Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, received training in the wilderness. John the Baptist studied with the Holy Spirit as he was prepared to be the herald of the Promised Savior, Jesus.
John the Baptist took his place as a prophet of God, and he came out of the wilderness and carried out his ministry at and around the Jordan River. We see three themes in the message of John as Matthew records it.
First, John preached that all should “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” John called all people to make a one hundred and eighty degree turn away from their sin and, instead, to turn to God – to follow after Him in love and thanksgiving and obedience. And the reason that John gave was that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. By this, John meant that this is the time of the gathering of the people of God back to God. The Coming of the Savior is the inauguration of God receiving those who believe in Him Alone into the Promised Savior and the Restored Kingdom that He will finally bring to earth.
John told the people that the Savior was here, and He is the Bridge that causes us to cross the chasm between God and us. Now was that time then and now is the time still. Until Jesus returns the second time, now is the time to repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Second, John condemned those who came to the waters of baptism claming works-righteousness. John condemned the Pharisees and the Sadducees who thought that they came with something that would bridge the gap between God and them. John warned them that they dare not put their trust in father Abraham – not even father Abraham was made right with God based on Abraham himself, but on what God did through him and for him. Abraham was made right with God through grace, and grace through the Son is the only way that anyone will every be made right with the Father.
Third, John explained to those coming to him for baptism that he baptized with water, but the Savior Who was coming after him was greater than him. John humbly told them that he was not worthy to carry the Savior’s filthy sandals. The Savior, he explained to them, was coming, not to baptize with water, but to baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. The Holy Spirit would proceed from the Savior and dwell within all those who believe in Him Alone for their salvation, and the Savior would purify those who believe and make them holy, just as He is holy.
John also explained to them that the Savior would come, not only as the Savior, but as the Judge would divide the world before Him, gathering some unto Himself, and throwing others into the unquenchable fire. The Savior will not be fooled by hypocrites, but will bring the humble to Himself and make them righteous for His Name’s Sake.
In Jesus’ thirtieth year, He came from Galilee to the Jordan to John and asked that John baptize Him. John recognized Jesus as the Savior and would announce Him as such in the days to come, so he was shocked and taken aback when the Savior asked him to baptize Him with the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. It didn’t make sense: the Savior had no need to be forgiven for His sins – the Savior is sinless – He must be if He is going to make His people right with God.
John said, “You don’t need to be baptized. I need to be baptized by You. I am the sinner. I am the one who needs to be made right with God. You have nothing to repent of – You have brought the Kingdom of Heaven to Your people. Why would You come to me to be baptized?”
Jesus told John, “Let is be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” What does that mean?
Jesus did not deny that He did not need to baptized for His sins – He is sinless. But, He asked John to baptize Him to assure us that we are ingrafted into Him – that He obeyed the Father in everything – that Jesus experienced all that we experience.
Paul writes, “We were buried therefore with [Jesus] by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4, ESV).
Baptism is symbolic of death and burial – death towards sin and burial of our sinful nature. Jesus was baptized that we would be like Him in baptism, and whereas He was really put to death and buried, we are symbolically dead and buried with Him through baptism. So we will really walk in new life now and really be resurrected from the dead – just as He was – in the days to come.
And so, John submitted to Jesus and baptized Him in obedience to the Father, and when Jesus walked out of the water the heavens were torn open. Can you imagine what they saw? I can only come up with a cartoonish image of what it would look like for God to tear open the heavens...
And the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. We know that God the Father and God the Holy Spirit do not have physical bodies – only God the Son in the Incarnation took on a human body – the real human person of Jesus. But so that everyone would see that God the Holy Spirit was indwelling Jesus – bringing the inauguration of His Mission – the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove.
(We may ask, if Jesus is God, why did God indwell Him? This is part of the mystery of Jesus being One Person with two natures – a human and a divine nature. Jesus is One Person, but He is 100% God and 100% human in the One Person. So, the Holy Spirit indwelt Jesus in His Human Nature.)
And then the Father spoke, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus is the Beloved of God, and the Father is well pleased with His Son.
What does this mean?
Before the Creation, all that existed was God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. God existed and was in perfect harmony with Himself. He loved Himself perfectly. He was in perfect communion – fellowship – with Himself. God was all God needed, and God was passionately in love with Himself. There is no greater love than the love that the Father has for the Son and the Spirit, and the love that the Son has for the Father and the Spirit, and the love that the Spirit has for the Father and the Son. (And all of these things remain true of God.)
This love was revealed most dramatically in God’s Declaration of Love at Jesus’ Baptism. This love is confirmed and the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit as Isaiah prophesied: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations” (Isaiah 42:1, ESV). And Peter confirms this declaration, as it was repeated at the Transfiguration, “For when [Jesus] received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,’ we ourselves heard this very voice from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain” (II Peter 1:17-18, ESV).
God the Father has loved God the Son with a perfect and infinite love from infinite eternity past into infinite eternity future. God the Son is the Only Begotten of the Father – there is no other God the Son – all of the love for God the Son was given to the One God the Son from God the Father. We are sons and daughters of God – we who believe in the Savior, but there is only One God the Son; there is only One Son Who is co-equal with the Father – the Same One God.
Is your head spinning a little bit? That’s ok. We are not God. We have not always been. We are not Infinite Beings of perfect love.
But, may we begin to understand?
Most of us had parents. Our parents were not perfect, or infinite, but they loved us. Some of us may not have been loved well. But we can understand to some degree what it would mean or does mean to be loved by our parents. Can we not imagine or understand what it means to say that our parents loved us? Even if all of your experiences have been bad, you can think of what they ought to have been, what you wish they had been, you can draw the picture in your mind of what it would mean for your parents to love you. In one way or another, we can understand what it means to say that the Father loved the Son, can we not?
Now, let’s stretch our minds as far as we can and try to begin to understand what it would mean that the Perfect, Eternal, Infinite God the Father has Perfect, Eternal, Infinite Love for God the Son. Let’s take our best understanding of parents loving a child, and raise it to the absolutely perfect and infinite power. That’s how much God the Father loves God the Son. That is the Love of God that rests on Jesus, the Incarnate Son. And Jesus is the Only Begotten Son, so He receives all of the Father’s Love for the Son. There is no other God the Son to take any of His Love away – if that were even possible.
And why did the Father say He was well pleased with the Son? Because the Son perfectly obeyed the Father in love, accomplishing everything that the Father called Him to do. Jesus said, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:4-5, ESV).
Jesus is the beloved of God because of Who He is – the Second Person of the Trinity – and because He perfectly carried out the Will of the Father for Him on earth. Does that make sense?
Now, let’s consider something a little easier for us to understand: you and I are not perfect. We are not infinite. We are not always loving. In fact, we, even as Christians, continue to sin against the very God Who has reconciled us to Himself. You and I are sinners. And, if we were to compare ourselves to the Infinitely Perfect, Eternal, and Beloved God the Son, the very best word that we can use to describe ourselves is “wretched.” Paul considered who he was as a Christian and wrote, “Wretched man that I am Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24, ESV).
Do we remember Paul’s answer? “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord ” (Romans 7:25a, ESV).
What is Paul talking about? “[God the Father] predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:5-6, ESV). “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14, ESV). “[God the Father] who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32, ESV).
Paul is telling us that God the Father not only sent His Only Begotten Son, His Beloved Son, to earth in the Person of Jesus, but He gave His Son, His Only Begotten Son, His Beloved Son, over to the hands of evil men, that He might suffer and die the horrific death of crucifixion, and not only that, but for the only time in all of eternity, the Father ruptured the perfect love and communion and fellowship between the Father and the Son in that moment on the cross that Jesus cried out that He was forsaken, so that Jesus might experience the whole of God’s Wrath for the payment of the debt for sin for everyone who would ever believe in Him.
We will remember in Genesis 22, God gave Abraham a son, Isaac, and God promised that Isaac would be the son of promise – that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed – that God would carry out His Plan for His people through Isaac. And then God told Abraham to take his son, his only son, his beloved son, and to offer him as a burnt offering to God on the mountain.
So Abraham took Isaac and went up the mountain, and Isaac noticed that they brought fire and wood, but they didn’t have a lamb to sacrifice. And Isaac asked his father where the lamb for sacrifice was. And Abraham answered that God would provide the lamb. And he tied up Isaac and put him on the altar and lifted up a knife, ready to plunge it into his son, his only son, his beloved son, in obedience to God, offering him up as a sacrifice to God. And God said, “Stop ” And He provided a ram which was stuck in the thicket for the sacrifice; Isaac was redeemed; Abraham’s trust was proved.
But that day on Calvary, God allowed His Only Begotten Son, His Beloved Son, to be taken by wicked men and impaled on a cross, crucified, and hanged to suffer not only the horror of crucifixion, but the unimaginable, eternal wrath of God. And God did not stop it. God did not yell, “Stop ” God did not reach down and save His Beloved; He allowed Him to be slaughtered.
Throughout His Earthly Life, God the Father declared that Jesus is His Beloved Son – in His Baptism, in His Transfiguration – why would God allow this to happen to Him – the Perfect, Holy, Infinite Son of His Love?
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV).
We moderns – even modern Christians – have a warped sense of self. We believe we are pretty good people. I can’t tell you the number of times that people have told me that they would “go to heaven” because they were basically good people. Eighty percent of Americans say they are better than average people. It’s mind-boggling how well we think of ourselves. That’s why “reality” TV and court TV gets such high ratings – we can watch these people and tell ourselves how much better we are than they.
But God tells us we are “wretched” sinners.
God said that Jesus is His Beloved.
God said we are “wretched” sinners.
God gave His Beloved Son up to a horrifing, unimaginable, undeserved death. Why?
Because the God Who loves His Son, Jesus, and declared Him to be His Beloved, God the Son, His Eternal Beloved – this God loves you and me and everyone who will believe in Jesus Alone for salvation so much – that He gave His Beloved up for us – to pay our debt and make us righteous before God.
Why? I have no idea. Why was God willing to put His Beloved to death for me? I can’t tell you. Why was God willing to put His Beloved to death for you? I can’t tell you. The Scripture tells us that God did not give His Son because of anything we are or do or would be. God did not give up His Beloved for us because we are so good or because He needs us or because God can’t accomplish His Plan without us. We’re not told why God chose to sacrifice His Beloved in love for us. Let us accept that God has a plan and a purpose of His Own, known only to Him.
And let us be amazed by His Love. Are you amazed? It can be hard to believe. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that God loves me and God’s Church and the Israel of God with such a love that He would give us His Beloved to torture and kill. But in those moments when we find it difficult, we need to tell Satan to get behind us. We have been baptized in Jesus’ Death and rise to new life through Him.
I am a wretched sinner; but thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, He has made me His beloved. And everyone who believes savingly in Jesus is loved by God the Father with a love that we find incomprehensible – that He would sacrifice His Beloved.
Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Beloved of God. We need to hear that – not to become prideful, but to be humbled and amazed. God has made us His Beloved through His Son, the Eternal Beloved. Let us cover our lips in amazement:
“And can it be that I should gain and interest in the Savior’s blood? Died he for me, who caused his pain? For me, who him to death pursued? Amazing love How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? Amazing love How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
“‘Tis mystery all The Immortal dies Who can explore his strange design? In vain the first-born seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine ‘Tis mercy all Let earth adore, let angel minds inquire no more. Amazing love How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me ”
Let us pray:
Almighty God and Father, we can hardly understand what it means that You have loved the Son from all of eternity with Infinite and Perfect Love. We thank You that You have revealed to us that Jesus is the Beloved God the Son. And we approach You with amazement that You chose to sacrifice Your Beloved for us. Help us to receive and to begin to comprehend what it means that You have loved us with that incomprehensible a love for Your Sake and according to Your Plan and Purposes. For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
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