“Beloved”
[Luke 3:21-22]
January 13, 2019, Second Reformed Church
The second Sunday of January we particularly remember the baptism of Jesus. Today I would like to expand our look a little, as we consider why the Father calls the Son His “Beloved Son.”
There are two places in Scripture where God the Father called Jesus His “Beloved Son” – at Jesus’ baptism – this morning’s text – and at the Transfiguration.
In Jesus’ baptism, we see that the Son is beloved of the Father because He dies for the people the Father gave Him.
“Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:21-22, ESV).
Why was John the Baptist baptizing people?
Baptism symbolizes the washing away of sin, and John the Baptist was calling all people – Jews and Gentiles – to confess and repent of their sins in the waters of baptism. So, John was baptizing people who confessed and repented of their sins – it was a symbolic washing away of sin. Just as the debt for sin is actually washed away by belief in the Savior with confession and repentance.
Jesus, of course, never sinned, so why was Jesus baptized – why did He insist that John baptize Him?
In order for Jesus to be our Savior – the Savior of all those who will believe – He had to experience everything that we experience – excepting sin.
So, we are baptized, not because it washes away our sin, but because it symbolizes how Jesus paid the debt for the sin of everyone who would ever believe, so we are now actually washed clean of sin and its debt because of what Jesus has done on our behalf. That is, Jesus took our place – He was our Substitute on the cross – He endured the Wrath of God as eternal Hell for each one who would ever savingly believe – He endured the Wrath of God – eternal Hell – He died, was buried, and then physically and victoriously rose from the dead, meriting victory over sin and death and Hell for our sakes and to the glory of God.
Paul explains:
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him 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.
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:3-11, ESV).
Jesus’ baptism was symbolic of the work that Jesus did in salvation for us – He suffered, died, was buried, and physically rose. So, we will not suffer in the life to come, and after we have died and been buried, we will physically rise and be made like Him.
And so the Father loves Him:
Jesus says, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:17-18, ESV).
The Son is beloved of the Father because He dies for the people the Father gave Him.
Second, in the Transfiguration, we see that the Son is beloved of the Father because He lives for the people the Father gave Him.
“And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him’” (Matthew 17:1-5, ESV).
Why didn’t God the Son just pop down on Palm Sunday and just be on earth for a week? Why did God the Son come to earth by God the Holy Spirit through the womb of the Virgin Mary and live for thirty-three years?
The reason God the Son didn’t just pop down on Palm Sunday is due to the fact that suffering the debt for our sin would not be enough to make us right with God. God requires us to be sinless and righteous; we must be holy. We must not only not sin, but we must also keep the whole Law of God perfectly.
In Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross, followed by His burial and physical resurrection, Jesus takes upon Himself all of the sin of all of those who will ever believe in Him and all of God’s Wrath for the sin – and, Jesus credits us with His sinlessness – God sees us as people who have never sinned against God’s Law.
However, something more must happen for us to be seen as keeping all of God’s Law, and that is what we see in the Transfiguration and in God the Father’s declaration of Jesus being His “beloved Son” – Jesus kept all of God’s Law perfectly and credits that righteousness to us. So, we are seen as sinless and righteous – as holy – in and through Jesus.
Last week was Epiphany. The Transfiguration was another epiphany – another revealing. The three saw a revealing of the glory and the work of God in the Son in the event on the holy mountain.
A bright light suddenly appeared – symbolizing the Glory of God, and Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus. Why Moses and Elijah? Why not Noah and Sarah? Moses is the preeminent figure associated with the Law of God – the vast majority of the Law is given through Moses in the first five books of the Bible. And Elijah is the preeminent figure associated with the prophets.
And that may seem a little confusing since there is so little about the prophet Elijah in the Bible – there isn’t even a book of Elijah. We might think of Isaiah or Jeremiah or Daniel before we think of Elijah. But such is not the case.
Why? Well, we are given a clue – the book of Malachi – written about 400 B.C. – the last book of the Old Testament, ends with this prophecy:
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.
“Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction” (Malachi 4:1-6, ESV).
He is the prophet Elijah that God will send back – not any of the other prophets. We can make guesses as to why this may be, but it is better to just receive the words of Jesus, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:1-15, ESV).
We are not going to explore all of what this means this morning; suffice it to say that God points us to Elijah as being the representative of all the prophets of the Bible.
From this, we can see that Jesus – in the Transfiguration – meets with the representative figures of the Law of God – Moses – and the prophets – Elijah. Why?
Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:17-20, ESV).
Jesus came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets – Jesus came to keep everything that God said we must keep in the Law and the Prophets.
And so, the Son of God had to live a real human life to keep all of the Law and the Prophets on behalf of all who would believe savingly in Him.
That is why the Father says that the Son is beloved by Him at the Transfiguration.
The Son is beloved of the Father because He lives for the people the Father gave Him.
Third, the Son is beloved of the Church because He lives and dies for us.
We read of the relationship between the Church – all those who will ever believe – and the Son:
“She
“My beloved has gone down to his garden to the beds of spices, to graze in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine; he grazes among the lilies” (Song of Solomon 6:2-3, ESV).
Paul explains the love of the Son for the Church in living and dying in this way:
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Romans 5:6-11, ESV).
While we were spiritually dead, Christ, the Son of God, became our beloved by saving us from the Wrath of God through His blood – His death. And, while we were enemies of God, Christ, the Son of God, became our beloved by saving us by His life, so we are now reconciled to God. We have nothing to fear and every reason to be joyful.
The Son is beloved of the Church because He lives and dies for us.
So, how do we show the Son that He is our beloved?
Jesus tells us:
“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (John 14:21, ESV).
“Jesus answered him, ‘If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him’” (John 14:23, ESV).
“for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God’ (John 16:27, ESV).
If the Son is our beloved, we will obey Him as He obeyed His Father.
Jesus is the beloved of the Father for His life and death for the sake of the people the Father gave Him. The Son kept the Law and the Prophets and took on God’s Wrath for our sin and credited us with His righteousness. So, we are now reconciled to God, Jesus is our beloved, and in response to His love for us, we obey.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You that You are One God beloved in Trinity. We thank You for sending Your Son that He would follow Your will and be Your beloved. We thank You that Jesus has reconciled us to You so He is our beloved. Help us by the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit to live lives of obedience as fruit of that love. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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