Who is Jesus? His baptism reveals that He is the Son of God, while His genealogy reveals that He is the Son of Man. Without being fully God and fully man He could not save us from our sins.
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Who Is Jesus?
Luke 3:21-38
The gospel according to Luke, is the first volume in a 2-volume work written to a man by the name of Theophilus. The first volume is the story of Jesus Christ. The second volume is the story of the early church. Luke is amassing evidence in these early chapters of Luke, that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the One God has sent to bring salvation to mankind. Let’s recall some of the testimony that Luke has already produced.
Gabriel to Mary: “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end… The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:31-33; 35)
Elizabeth to Mary: “How has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me?” (Luke 1:43)
Zacharias: “God has raised up a horn of salvation for us” (Luke 1:68). “Because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us.”
An Angel: “today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11)
Simeon: “my eyes have seen Your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light of revelation to the gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.” (Luke 1:30-32)
John the Baptist: “As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Luke 3:16). We dwelt at length last Sunday on this description of Jesus Christ. Although John was a mighty man of God, he said that Jesus was mightier than he. Although John was the human instrument that God used to spark a massive revival amongst the Jews to stir them to repentance and to be prepared to receive Jesus as Messiah when He came on the scene, John frankly confessed that his light was like a candle in comparison to the brightness of the sun at noonday! All John could do was administer the outward rite of water baptism. But Jesus was able to immerse people in the Holy Spirit and fire. We discovered last week that these are probably two different baptisms. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is what happens to every person when they are born again. Jesus immerses them in the Holy Spirit, and they enter into the body of Christ. However, for those who do not repent of sin and turn to Christ in faith, there is another baptism. It is a baptism in fire. For those people who refuse to repent, Jesus will immerse them in the fire of hell. So, John has vividly confirmed that Jesus is God’s Messiah, come to save His people.
So, what is Luke doing in the first 3 chapters of his gospel? He’s calling forth witness after witness to testify to who Jesus Christ is. He has called forth Gabriel, Elizabeth, Zacharias, an angel, Simeon, and John the Baptist. And what do these witnesses have to say? They tell us that Jesus is the Son of the Most High, the Son of God, a King who will reign, a horn of salvation, the Sunrise from on high, the Savior, the Christ, the Lord, God’s salvation, a light to the Gentiles, the glory of Israel, the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit and fire. Wow! Those are some pretty impressive credentials. But Luke is not done. Before He launches into a description of Jesus’ public ministry, he is going to give the testimony of God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit, and then the testimony of Jesus’ genealogical record.
Last week’s message was about What Jesus Does – He baptizes in the Holy Spirit and fire. In other words, He either saves you or damns you. This week’s message is about Who Jesus Is. We are going to discover in verses 21-22 that Jesus is the Son of God. Then we are going to discover in verses 23-38 that Jesus is the Son of Man.
Now, it is extremely important that you know and worship the real Jesus of the Bible. This is one of the main issues that separates a Christian church from a cult. Most cults will deny the full Deity of Jesus Christ. If we are going to worship acceptably, we must worship according to Truth. So today, let’s go to the Word and get a good dose of the truth about Jesus Christ.
1. Jesus – The Son Of God (3:21-22)
The Witness of the Spirit
“Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized, and while He was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove” (Luke 3:21-22). While Jesus was praying God responded, confirming that this was truly the Messiah that He had sent. The Holy Spirit did not descend on anyone else of the thousands that came to be baptized. This act of the Spirit descending upon Christ signals the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Certainly Jesus had been in perfect communion with the Spirit His entire life, because He is God. However, He had done no miracles yet. When the Spirit descended upon Him, this was God’s public statement that His Son was now being empowered with the Spirit to do all His will. This act was God’s way of letting us know that all of the works Jesus would perform in His ministry would be done through the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus would do His ministry in the same way that we must do ours – by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Look with me at Luke 4:18-19, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” Now, what did Jesus do in His earthly ministry? Basically three things – preaching, healing, and casting out demons. Jesus, here is quoting Isaiah 61:1-2, and saying that His preaching, healing, and freeing ministry was done by the power of the Spirit. The word “anoint” refers to being empowered. Listen to the words of Peter on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:22, “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know.” How did Jesus do miracles and wonders and signs? Was it just through the independent exercise of His attribute of omnipotence as God? No. God performed these miracles through Him. When Peter was preaching to Cornelius and his household he said, “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38). Notice that the reason Jesus was able to do good, and heal all who were oppressed by the devil is because God was with Him. When Jesus was accused of casting out demons by Beelzebul, the Prince of Demons, Jesus responded, “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Mt. 12:28). How did Jesus cast out demons? According to Jesus, it was by the Spirit of God. Indeed John 4:34 says, “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure.” The Father gave Jesus the Spirit without measure. To every other Christian God gives the Spirit, but in certain measure. Jesus, possessed the Spirit without measure.
So, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus visibly in bodily form, looking like a dove, this was God’s way of testifying that Jesus was the One He had sent to save His people, and that the Holy Spirit was now empowering Him for the ministry He was about to embark upon.
The Witness of the Father
“A voice came out of heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased” (Luke 3:22). We have seen the witness of the Spirit in descending upon Jesus as a dove. Now, let’s take a look at the witness of the Father. Both the witness of the Spirit and the witness of the Father were public acts. The Spirit descended visibly to the multitude gathered at the River Jordan. The Father spoke audibly so that all could hear that day. And, what did God say?
Jesus Is The Son Of God. You are My Son. For God to say that Jesus was His Son, was tantamount to saying that Jesus was equal with the Father. The Jews understood that. In John 5:18 it says, “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” The Jews understood that if God were Jesus Father, Jesus was equal with God. Why? Because a son shares the essential nature of his father. He inherits his father’s genetic makeup. When God said that Jesus was His Son, He was saying that Jesus is equal to Himself, Jesus is God. The Bible clearly teaches that God is a Trinity. The one eternal God, has manifested Himself in three divine, co-equal and co-eternal Persons – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Jesus is God the Son. Jesus has all the same attributes as God the Father. Jesus as God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, holy, just, sovereign, gracious, kind, etc. But when God the Son became a man, the Divine nature was forever wedded to a human nature. When God said, “You are My Son”, He was saying “You are God!” No wonder John begins his gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
Jesus Is Beloved Of God. “You are My Beloved Son.” Oh, who can fathom the depth of the love between the members of the Trinity?! Each member of the Trinity is perfection itself. How could each Person of the Trinity not love with perfect love every other member? If God must love that which is righteous, holy, and perfect, then He must love Himself. The Father must love the Son, and the Son must love the Father, and the Spirit must love the Father and the Son. John 4:35 says, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.” Then again in John 5:20 Jesus said, “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing.” Listen to the words of Jesus in John 17:24, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” Oh, the love between God and Jesus is an infinite love, a perfect love, a timeless love. This is a love that existed before the creation of the universe, before there was time, before there were angels. It is a love that existed between the three Persons of the Trinity from everlasting.
Jesus Is Pleasing To God. This literally reads, “In You I have found delight.” Isn’t that a tremendous thought? God has eternally delighted in His Son! Jesus has been a source of eternal delight, and joy, and pleasure to God the Father. God takes delight in His own attributes, His own eternal perfections. As God the Father beholds Jesus, He is seeing His own perfections reflected back at Him. Jesus is “the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Heb. 1:3). God can not help but find infinite delight and pleasure in beholding His Son, because in doing so, He is beholding His own perfections!
So, just as the Spirit bore witness to the identity of Jesus Christ as the Chosen One, the Messiah, so too God the Father bore witness to Him, as God in human flesh, the One He loves without measure, and the One who brings Him infinite delight.
The witness of the Spirit and the Father is that Jesus is the eternal, infinitely perfect, Son of God. Now, let’s turn our attention to the final witness – that of Christ’s genealogical record.
2. Jesus – The Son Of Man (3:23-38)
At this point, we are going to immerse ourselves in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. I know that the genealogies are the most interesting and fascinating of all the parts of the Bible for you! Hang in there with me, because Jesus’ genealogy reveals some important information. Jesus has been confirmed by the Spirit descending upon Him, and the Father identifying Him audibly as His beloved Son in whom He is well-pleased. However, if He doesn’t have the right genealogy, He can’t be the Messiah. Remember, that the angel told Mary that Jesus would reign on the throne of His father David. If Jesus is the Messiah, it must be proven that he is a descendant of David. So, Matthew and Luke give their genealogies to prove that point. Matthew shows that Jesus is legally a descendant of David while Luke shows that Jesus is naturally a descendant of David.
Differences Between Matthew and Luke’s Genealogies
There are some big differences between the genealogy found in Matthew and the one found here in Luke. Matthew’s genealogy starts with Abraham, and descends down through David to Jesus. Luke’s genealogy starts with Jesus and ascends through David, and Abraham to Adam, and then to God. Matthew’s genealogy mentions 3 lists of 14 persons or 42 names. Luke’s genealogy lists 77 names. The biggest difference between these two genealogies is the names from Jesus to David. From David to Abraham, the two genealogies are exactly the same. But from Jesus to David, they are almost completely different from each other. This has raised a lot of concerns and caused a great deal of confusion. If both of these genealogies are the family tree from Jesus through his legal father, Joseph, how can the names be completely different in each? Of course, the answer is, “they can’t!” The easiest answer to this perplexing question is that Matthew is giving the genealogy of Joseph, showing Jesus’ legal right to the throne of David, as the legal rights come down through the father. On the other hand, Luke is giving the genealogy of Mary, showing Jesus’ natural right to the throne of David.
However, when you read Luke 3:23, it sounds like we are reading the genealogy of Joseph, doesn’t it? “When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Eli. Matthew says that Joseph was the son of Jacob. Luke seems to be saying that Joseph is the son of Eli. Now, Joseph can’t be the son of two different men. What is the solution to this problem? Well, when Luke says that Jesus was “as supposed, the son of Joseph”, he is saying that Jesus was not the son of Joseph. He was the son of Mary. In ancient genealogies, women’s names were not included. So, how is Luke going to give Mary’s genealogy, without including her own name? He does it by saying, “as was supposed”. This was a back-handed way of mentioning Mary, without mentioning her name. So, most scholars believe that Eli was Mary’s father, not Joseph’s father. Luke is tracing Jesus’ descent through his mother, Mary, without mentioning her name.
This makes perfect sense, when you read Matthew and Luke’s accounts of the birth of Christ. In Matthew’s gospel, the main character is Joseph. Remember that Matthew tells the story of how Joseph was going to divorce Mary when he found out she was pregnant. Then the angel came to him and told him to go ahead and marry her because she was pregnant by the working of the Holy Spirit. In Matthew’s gospel, Joseph’s name occurs 9 times in the birth narrative, while Mary’s name appears 5 times. It’s just the opposite in Luke’s gospel. In the first two chapters of Luke, Mary is the main character. Luke shows how Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she would bear a son and name him Jesus. Joseph hardly even shows up, and when he does, he doesn’t speak at all. Mary’s name occurs 11 times in Luke, and Joseph’s name appears only 3 times. So, Matthew is focusing on Joseph while Luke is focusing on Mary. It makes sense, then, that Matthew’s genealogy will be through Joseph, while Luke’s genealogy will be through Mary.
Only two of the gospel accounts even record a genealogy. Mark and John do not give genealogies. Mark presents Jesus as God’s Servant and no one cares about the genealogy of a servant. John presents Jesus as the Son of God rendering a genealogy impossible.
Now, notice carefully where Matthew and Luke trace Jesus’ descent back to. Matthew traces Jesus family tree back through David to Abraham. Why? Because Matthew is writing his gospel for the Jews, showing that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. Therefore, Matthew shows that Jesus that Jesus is a true Jew, a descendant of Abraham, the Father of the Jewish nation.
Luke, however, traces Jesus’ family tree back through David and Abraham, all the way back to Adam. Why? Because Luke is a gentile, writing to a gentile. Luke’s interest is not to show that Jewish is a Jewish Messiah, but that He is the Savior of all men, including gentiles. That’s why he takes his genealogy all the way back to Adam. While Matthew takes his record back to Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, Luke takes his record back to Adam, the father of the human race.
First Luke shows from the witness of the Father that Jesus is the Son of God. Then he shows from the witness of His genealogy, that Jesus is the Son of Man.
In fact, “Son of Man” was a much more popular title for Jesus than “Son of God.” Jesus is referred to as “Son of God” 17 times in the gospels, but as the “Son of man” 84 times! The key verse for Luke is usually identified as Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
The title of this sermon is “Who Is Jesus?” After having looked at Luke 3:21-38, I think we can answer that question. Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man in one person, and will be so forever. Jesus is fully man. He is every bit of what we are, except He has no sin. He was tempted in every way that we are, yet without sin. He had human emotions. He wept. He rejoiced. He had a human mind. He grew in wisdom. He had a human body. He grew weary and tired. He got hungry. He bled when you pricked his finger. He could die. My friends, Jesus is just like you in every way except for sin.
However, Jesus is also fully God. He possesses all the attributes of God. He is uncreated, eternal, and immortal. He is the creator of the universe. Now, why is that important? Why did Jesus need to be both fully God and fully man?
Life Application
Why does it matter that Jesus was both fully God and fully man in one person? The answer is that only someone who was both fully God and fully man in one person could save you from your sins!
Why is it important that Jesus was fully man? If Jesus were not man, He couldn’t represent you. Adam represented the entire human race, because he was the father of the human race. He was one of us. When Adam fell, he brought death and destruction to the entire human race, because he represented us. We need Another to represent us. But this person must also be a human, in order to represent other humans. Since man sinned, another man must come to undo the effects of that sin. This is what Paul meant in 1 Timothy 2:5 when he says, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Because we are sinful and fallen, we need a mediator, someone who can reconcile us to God. According to Paul, God has provided that mediator, and he is none other than the man Christ Jesus. An angel could not be our mediator, because it was not an angel that got the human race into such a horrible mess. It was a man. Therefore, another Man must restore us to Paradise.
Think about it this way. God is a spirit. As such, He cannot bleed, and He cannot die. However, the penalty of sin is death. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. So if God had never become man, He could not have bled and died for the human race in order to save us from our sins. It was absolutely essential that God become a man.
Why was it important that Jesus was fully God? If Jesus were only a man, could He have saved us? No way! If Jesus were a mere man, he would have been born the ordinary way of two human parents, and he would have inherited a corrupt nature. He would have been born as a sinful human being. If a sinful human being died, he could only die to pay for his own sins. In order to be a sacrifice to pay for the sins of others, Jesus had to be sinless. Paul says, “He made Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Further, no human could ever bear the full weight of the sins of the world. The prophet Isaiah said, “The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” Jesus was strong enough to bear the iniquities of us all. Any mere man would have sunk down to hell beneath the load of that sin.
Think about it this way. Luke traces back to Adam who was the son of God. Because Adam was directly created by God, he is called the son of God. As God’s special creation, Adam bore the image of God. That image was unmarred, unspoiled, and uncorrupted until he sinned. Adam was created as a son of God the way He designed men to be His sons. However, when Adam sinned, that beautiful image of God was shattered and marred by the Fall. Since that time, no one has ever entered the world bearing God’s image perfectly like Adam did, except for Jesus Christ. However, when Jesus came into the world, He fully pleased the Father. He delighted His Father. Jesus, as a man, was what Adam once was. Jesus, like Adam, was sinless, the perfect man, perfectly bearing God’s image. He places one hand on the Father, and the other hand on us. He is the Son of God as to His Deity, and the Son of Man as to His humanity. And as the perfect, unspoiled, uncorrupted man, He comes into the world to undo what the first man did. He came to bring us back into the Garden, back into Paradise, back into fellowship with God.
My question for you is, “Is He your Mediator?” “Have you come to Him in brokenness and surrender, confessing your sin, and trusting Him to reconcile you to God.” Are you trusting not in yourself, your good deeds, or your religious observances, but in Him, and what He accomplished on the cross when He said, “It is finished!” I call on all of you, to make your peace with God. Repent of sin! Turn from it! It will only lead you on a fools’ chase down to hell. Turn to the living God. Jeremiah cried out, “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water” (Jer.2:13). Here are the two evils Israel committed. First, they forsook God who was the fountain of living waters. Second, they made for themselves cisterns. But these cisterns were broken, and they couldn’t hold any water. Isn’t that like us? We turn from the Living God who alone can satisfy, and we turn to… anything else. We turn to drugs, or alcohol, or sex. Or we turn to entertainment, or food, or recreation. We turn from the only One who can satisfy our souls, and we turn to things that are broken! They promise satisfaction, but they never deliver. My friend, what have you turned to? What are you building your life upon? What is your master passion? What is the God you worship? I call upon you, in the name of Jesus Christ, to forsake everything else, and come to Jesus Christ. He is the only One who can save you, and He is the only One who can satisfy you. Let’s pray.
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