The Only Savior, God’s Son

Luke 3:7-14 insists that we understand repentance, for if we do not understand repentance then we do not accurately understand the Christian life. As Martin Luther put it in his ninety-five theses, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” In the Christian life we enter into a life of repentance, a life of ever turning toward that celestial city. Repentance is a wonderful Christian discipline.

John’s public ministry raises the question of John’s personal identity. The people wonder just who John is. He is growing in their estimation. It is natural to exalt or esteem people when we recognize the good they have done for us. The crowds begin to wonder “whether John might be the Messiah” (v. 15).

John wishes to set the record straight immediately (v. 16). He tells them that his baptism was symbolic. The true baptism includes the gift of God himself—the Holy Spirit. John makes it clear that the Messiah will bring God’s fire of judgment.

Every preacher and pastor should follow John’s example. Let us use all our fingers to point away from ourselves and to the Lord Jesus Christ. People will love and esteem faithful pastors. Sometimes they will appreciate their pastors too much or in improper ways. Let every faithful pastor work against that tendency in their people. The best way to help the people express proper affection is to emulate John by constantly pointing them to Jesus Christ the Lord. Make it clear that we must decrease and Christ must increase. We cannot be great and Christ great too. We cannot worry about people loving our sermons when we should want them to love the Savior.

Our task is to point to Jesus that he might be great in the people’s sight. We cannot point to him and to ourselves at the same time. Sometimes we must reorient the people so they see Jesus for who he really is. John the Baptist does that as he reminds the people of the winnowing shovel and the threshing floor. A winnowing shovel was used to separate wheat from the chaff. A farmer would toss the harvest into the air. The wheat would fall and the chaff would float on the breeze, thus separating the two. He would gather the wheat to be used, and he would gather the chaff to be burned as waste.

Christ’s coming includes this kind of sifting. The Lord Jesus said it himself:

“From now on, five in one household will be divided: three against two, and two against three. They will be divided, father against son, son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (12:52-53)

Christ plunges the winnowing shovel of the gospel into the world, and the wheat of faith is collected while the chaff of unbelief gets burned away in condemnation. Christians must bear faithful witness to Christ the Judge in a world that would rather Jesus were only a babe in a manger; they would only have Jesus be some wise teacher and consistently deny that he is Judge. Jesus is both the saving Lord who gives his life for sinners and the judging King who weighs us all.

People are often wrong in their assessment of who Jesus is. The Christian’s job is to make it plain. John gives us a model of persevering faithful witness. We see John’s faithfulness in three things. First, John remains faithful with the gospel itself (v. 18). He keeps preaching the good news. Second, we see his faithfulness no matter the audience (v. 19). He preached the same gospel to Herod the tetrarch. He does not bend the message to suit the itching ears of his hearers. Third, we see John’s faithfulness no matter the cost (v. 20). For preaching the gospel without compromise to Herod, John finds himself locked up in prison. Before long, Herod will have John beheaded (Matt 14:1-2; Mark 6:14-29).

To bear faithful witness about Jesus requires us to be careful with the message of the gospel, to be lovingly confrontational with the people who hear it, and to pay the cost that Christ may call us to pay. That is the only way we make it clear that Jesus is Lord in both our preaching and our pain, that we fear God and not man. This is God’s calling on the Christian life and how the world will know who Jesus is.

Who do the people say or think Jesus is? They get it wrong. Who gets it right? Those who bear the message of Jesus Christ in the gospel. We must be faithful so that the crowds will truly know him.

Luke 3:21-22

What does the Father say about who Jesus is? That question gets answered in verses 21-22. We’ve heard John’s testimony that Jesus is greater than him and that it is Jesus who brings both salvation and condemnation. But what people say about Jesus does not settle the matter. We need other testimony. Here God the Father gives testimony.

Jesus submits himself to baptism. People sometimes wonder why Jesus was baptized if he did not sin and had no reason to repent. The other Gospel writers give us insight. In Matthew 3:15 Jesus explains to John that he must be baptized because “this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to fulfill all the righteous requirements of the law. We have broken all those righteous requirements. Here Jesus stands in our place not just as our sin bearer but also as our righteousness. All the active and positive obedience we owe God as his creatures, the Lord Jesus provides perfectly, even down to his willingness to be baptized by John for the remission of sins he had not committed.

John 1:29-34 also records the baptism of our Lord. Jesus participates in this baptism so that “he might be revealed to Israel” (John 1:31). Jesus submitted in order to demonstrate to Israel that he is the Savior they awaited. At his baptism a confirmation is given of this in heaven. Luke 3:21-22 records that the Holy Spirit, who is noncorporeal, who blows where he wills like the felt but unseen wind, takes the visible form of a dove as he descends on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then the voice comes from heaven saying, “You are my beloved Son.” The Father steps vocally out of glory to testify that the child about whom there had been some question is indeed his Son. The fullness of God in all three persons of the Trinity unites in revealing Jesus Christ as God’s Son and Israel’s Savior.

Christ Jesus, who had been the Father’s Son from all eternity past, will be the Father’s Son for all eternity future. And Christ is no displeasing, hard-headed boy. This young man of thirty years, who is God the Son incarnate, is the Son who pleases his Father. Do you wish to know what delights God? It is his Son. The Father looks at the Lord Jesus Christ, who has come into the world to take the place of sinners, and he concludes, “This Son of mine pleases me.”

This is why all those who are “in Christ” by faith also have God as a Father who is pleased with them. The Father looks at the faithful and he sees his Son. All the Son has done to please the Father has become ours through our union with Christ through faith in him. This is why Christians have every right to fight those nagging doubts and whispers that come along sometimes to suggest God is not happy with us. If we have made the hard choice of repenting of our sins and coming to God, we can expect to hear blessing from God, not condemnation. We do not have to shudder and cower for fear of a harsh word of rebuke from God. He gave us that rebuke to turn us away from sin. What we can joyfully and confidently expect to hear now that we are in Christ are words similar to those spoken at our Lord’s baptism: “I am pleased with you because of Christ.” All of our comfort, security before God, joy in his presence, sense of safety, and delight come from this marvelous statement from heaven. Jesus is God’s Son, and God is pleased with him. Because we are in him through faith, God is pleased with us.

This text is obviously Trinitarian, isn’t it? At Jesus’s baptism all the persons of the Godhead are present. God the Son is baptized. God the Father speaks from heaven. God the Holy Spirit descends on the Son in the form of a dove. This one text stands in clear contrast against errors in understanding the nature of God. Some have taught that there is one God who takes different forms at different times. They say he is the Father in the Old Testament, then he takes the form of the Son in the New Testament, and at other times he takes the form of the Spirit. They argue God exists in these modes—which is false. That all three persons exist in the same scene at the same time means modalism cannot be true.

At other times people wrestling with the mystery of the Trinity have tried to subordinate one or the other in some way. So, for example, they argue that Jesus is less than God but more than man. Or they tell us that the Spirit is a force rather than a person. But that’s false too. In this text we see the three persons and yet there remains only one God. Each person is fully and eternally God.

Belief in the Trinity is one thing that makes us Christian. The historical Christian church has always understood the Trinity to be foundational to who God is and foundational to the faith. So the person who denies the Trinity actually denies the Christian faith. They deny who God really is, and by that denial prove they do not know God.

Indeed, those who actively and self-consciously deny the Trinity deny the gospel itself. Ephesians 1:3-14 gives us a Trinitarian understanding of God’s work of redemption. It teaches us that the Father appoints our salvation, the Son accomplishes our salvation, and the Holy Spirit applies our salvation. Lose any one person in the Godhead and the entire gospel house falls down.

Trinitarian teaching about the nature of God is for our delight. The reality of the Trinity mystifies us and exceeds our intelligence. But praise God! For if we could completely comprehend God then he would not be God; we would be. Yet the Trinity is not meant to confound us as much as it is meant to delight us. This one true God exists in three persons—all of whom love us and all of whom participate in our salvation.

If we would know Jesus, we must know this God. It is this God who tells us that Jesus—not John—is his Son with whom he is pleased.

Luke 3:23-38

We have heard the testimony of John and the testimony of God the Father. Now in verses 23-38 we come to the testimony of the genealogy. If John’s prophetic ministry answers the gossip about the identity of the Christ, and the Father divinely vouches for Jesus as his Son, then the genealogy is the DNA evidence proving that only Jesus is the Christ.

The Lord was about thirty years of age when he was baptized and began his public ministry. In the Old Testament, priests would begin their public ministry at age thirty. The Lord’s example suggests we should be patient with baptizing persons. If the Lord could wait until he demonstrated some maturity, it is a good practice for us to do that with our children by not rushing them to the baptismal waters. The same could be said to men aspiring to pastoral ministry. If the Lord could wait until he was thirty, then young man at twenty-five, twenty-seven, thirty, and even thirty-five, you can wait too. You can be tested, endure, and learn something about patience.

Truthfully, everything I have ever rushed in my life I have messed up. If you are thinking, Pastor, help me go to seminary or pursue pastoral ministry, and you are in a hurry, then my question for you is, “Do you really want to be the next thing I rush?” You will need to learn patience in order to be an effective minister of the gospel; you may as well learn it as you wait for the Lord to prepare you and send you.

What is the purpose of the genealogy in Israel? Scattered throughout the Old Testament are these tracings of family trees and relationships. Genealogies have a three-fold purpose. First, they prove who was Jewish and who was not. Such proof of Jewish ancestry was important because God’s covenants were made with Israel. The promise of a deliverer was a promise made to Israel, and he would come from Israel (Deut 18:15,18).

Second, the genealogies prove who could or could not serve as priests. Only Levites could serve before the Lord in the tabernacle and the temple. When Israel left captivity and exile during the days of Nehemiah, they turned almost immediately to the genealogies to register the people returning from exile. Nehemiah 7:64 tells us there were some who sought to be registered but were not found in the genealogies, “so they were disqualified from the priesthood.” The entire priesthood prefigured the coming Savior who would be the Great High Priest.

Third, the genealogies prove who was or was not a “son of David.” Do you remember the promise of 2 Samuel 7, when God promised to establish David’s throne forever? David’s son would be ruler over Israel and the hoped-for Messiah. But not just any son or descendant of David could fill that role. The genealogy also had to prove that anyone claiming to be Messiah was not descended from David through Jeconiah (Jer 22:24-30; 36:30-31). God declared that no one from Jeconiah’s house would sit on David’s throne.

This helps us understand some major differences between Matthew’s genealogy and Luke’s. Matthew’s genealogy is abbreviated and stylistic. He divides his record into three generations of fourteen as he traces Joseph’s lineage. He also breaks with Jewish convention by mentioning four women by name—and those were Gentile women.

Luke records a more exhaustive genealogy in a traditionally Jewish style. Luke’s genealogy does not mention any women by name. Nevertheless, Luke’s genealogy actually traces Mary’s lineage. We infer that from Luke 3:23 where we read that Jesus “was thought to be the son of Joseph, son of Heli” (emphasis added).

If the Messiah must be Jewish, a male descendant of David, and not a son of Jeconiah, why does Matthew twice mention Jeconiah and include Gentile women in the genealogy? It’s all very un-Jewish and disqualifying. Matthew writes his genealogy to prove Jesus’s claim to be Messiah is not through Joseph. Perhaps that’s why Matthew immediately follows his genealogy with the virgin birth (Matt 1:18-23).

Luke writes to show that Jesus is the Messiah promised by God and that his claim is fulfilled through his mother, Mary. This helps make sense of Genesis 3:15 and Isaiah 7:14, where we read that the offspring of the woman will strike the serpent’s head, and “the virgin will conceive [and] have a son” (emphasis added). Luke’s genealogy shows that Jesus fulfills all the criteria necessary for being Messiah. His claim is legitimate. The genealogy makes his claim a matter of public record.

No one else can establish their descent from David. In AD 70 the Roman army destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. They conquered and scattered Israel into captivity. The records of the genealogies and lines of descent were destroyed. Only here in the Gospel of Luke in the genealogy of chapter 3 do we receive the definitive evidence that the Messiah, the anointed one of God, is none other than Jesus Christ.

The genealogy helps Luke fulfill his purpose in writing this Gospel. His desire is “to write to you in an orderly sequence . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed” ­(1:3-4). Fulfilling the requirements for Messiah cannot happen by chance or by choice. No way. We don’t humanly control our births. We don’t choose our parents. We can’t set the time of our birth. Fulfillment of the criteria for Messiah cannot be manipulated or fabricated. That Jesus meets all the criteria is a remarkable evidence of his rightful claim to be Lord and Savior

The genealogical record gives us a tremendous amount of certainty. Our certainty does not only rest on the prophetic report about John, nor does it only rest on the extraordinary and miraculous events at the Lord’s baptism when heaven was opened and God spoke in a voice we have not heard. Here, traced and recorded over centuries, we have the answer to our introductory questions: Who ya fa? Where are you from? Jesus Christ is the King of kings, Lord of lords, and the only Savior, God’s Son.