Identity Statement

Sermon Transcript

There are various situations in which we need a witness to verify someone’s identity. Sadly, sometimes a witness is called in to verify the identity of a dead body. Other times, a witness might be called in to view a police lineup and identify a suspect. Infamous in tabloid talk shows, sometimes DNA is called as a witness to identify the real father of a child so child support can be properly allocated. In each situation, the stakes are high to get the person in question’s identity right: Life or death, guilt or innocence, parenthood or not. As we continue looking at the Gospel of Luke this morning, the question of Jesus’s identity looms large, and the stakes are even higher: Luke suggests through this book that even more than our lives on this earth, our eternity hangs on accurately identifying Jesus. If he is not who he claimed to be, he can be relegated to history books. But if he is who he claimed to be, then what we do with him will determine how we spend eternity. There are no big surprises on the question of who Jesus is in this passage if you’ve been with us in prior weeks or are familiar with the Gospels. In fact, this week we’re going a bit out of order due to the snow cancellation two weeks ago, and preaching on the passage before the one we looked at last week. But in this passage today, it’s not so much that we get a brand-new revelation of Jesus’ identity, but God himself appears as a witness, and verifies Jesus’ identity. He shows us that Jesus is the ultimate Son of God. He was anointed with God’s Spirit, he was declared to be God’s Son, and he was like God’s first son.

 

He was anointed with God’s Spirit

 

Our passage picks up after the ministry of John the Baptist, who is called John the Baptist because the focus of his ministry was on proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and then administering that baptism. So in the previous passage we get this image of crowds coming to be baptized by him, and verse 21 begins with a similar narration. Person after person from the crowd had been baptized, but when Jesus came to be baptized, something different happened—the heavens were opened, meaning the sky in some way appeared ripped. Before we look at that, though, let me just address a question that may be occurring to you: If John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, why did Jesus, who from the moment of his conception to this moment around age 30, was sinless—why did Jesus get baptized?

 

Luke doesn’t bring up that question or give us an answer, because his focus is not on Jesus’ baptism itself, but on what happens after it. But, inquiring minds want to know, and in Matthew’s Gospel, we get a clearer answer from the mouth of Jesus himself: “Thus it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15). In other words, if an Israelite in Jesus’ day wanted to be righteous, they did need to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins, because they did have sins. And what Jesus shows us in Matthew is that he came not merely to live a righteous life for himself; in that case, he wouldn’t have needed to get baptized. Instead, Jesus came to live a righteous life for us, for sinners, and to fulfill that righteousness, he had to go through what we must go through. He had to be tempted in every way as we are, he had to be baptized as we should have been, and ultimately, he would have to die the death we deserved. Just as he died on the cross for sins he didn’t commit, so he was baptized for the forgiveness of sins he didn’t commit.

 

But Luke moves pretty quickly past his baptism and tells us that as Jesus was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove. Suffice it to say this didn’t happen at any other baptisms, though John baptized crowds of people. There is something different about Jesus, and the difference isn’t something John pointed out; the spotlight on Jesus came directly from heaven. In Isaiah 64:1, during a troubled time, Israel prayed to the LORD and said, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence, as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil⁠— to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!” They’re praying that the Lord would come down from his heavenly throne to earth, so that the enemy nations who had oppressed them might tremble at God’s presence, and the image they use is the image of fire: As when fire kindles brushwood, and fire causes water to boil—they’re saying, “Lord, would you come like that?”

 

And in the passage just before this one, John the Baptist said that after him one was coming who would baptize not with water, but with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Then right after that passage, we come to this one, and what happens? The Lord rends the heavens and comes down, in the person of the Holy Spirit, and descends on a person: Jesus. What’s that showing us? It’s showing us that Jesus is the one to come after John, who will not only baptize with water, but with the Holy Spirit and fire. It’s showing us that the way God’s Holy Spirit will come to us is through him. Thus the apostle Paul could write to the Ephesians and say, “In [Christ] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph 1:13).

 

Interestingly here, though, the Spirit didn’t descend in the form of a fire, as we might expect from the prayer of Isaiah 64, or even from John’s words. Instead, the Spirit descended like a dove. Doves are gentle, peaceful animals. Elsewhere Jesus tells his disciples to be wise as serpents, but innocent as doves (Matt 10:16). The Spirit’s descent on Jesus in this manner shows that for this ministry, for which he is now being anointed by the Spirit, the focus will not be on bringing the fires of God’s judgment, but, as Jesus himself will say in chapter 4: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (4:18-19).

 

So the tearing of the heavens, and the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove shows us that he is the one to come after John, who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, though in this ministry for which he’s now being anointed, his focus will not be to bring God’s judgment, but God’s salvation. Did you know that he’s a gentle master? He’s the Son of God, the one truly righteous one, coming to a sinful world, a people whose every sin was against him, and he came in the spirit of a dove. Brothers and sisters, if this is our master and savior, do you see how unbecoming it is of a Christian to cherish a harsh and vengeful spirit, especially when you consider that we too are sinners dependent on his gentleness?

 

One challenge we face keeping in step with the Spirit in 2026 Philadelphia is that our majority culture has so absorbed Christian values of gentleness, compassion, and mercy while simultaneously detaching them from the Bible that it can be affirming of things the Bible condemns, and accuse Christians of being harsh and unmerciful simply because Christians won’t alter the words of God given to us in scripture. So here’s the challenge for us today: We must still have the courage to say what the Bible says, and not care if the world will say we aren’t being gentle, compassionate, and merciful, while still at the same time genuinely maintaining Jesus-like gentleness, compassion, and mercy! How will we do that? Is it any surprise that we will need the Spirit of Jesus?

 

On the flipside, we can also see ways that our apparently compassionate world can be very harsh. Let the world find a tweet you sent out a decade ago that doesn’t quite conform to today’s speech codes, and you may find the whole internet demanding your resignation. If you assume that you are righteous, and that righteousness is easily attainable by, you know, just doing what everyone with common sense does, and believing what everyone with common sense believes, and your identity is built on being one of the righteous people, then when you see someone transgress it, what are you going to do? You’re going to pour out your wrath upon them. And you will especially do that if you have resolved to never let yourself be wronged, and to never let any wrong go unpunished. How can you let anyone get away with it, after all? If you don’t punish them, who will? Such is the impulse of unbelief, and we are not immune to it.

 

But consider that the Holy Spirit is truly God, the one who is truly just, the one who does see all sin accurately, the one who actually does have the responsibility to judge sin, and when he rends the heavens and comes down to a sinful world, he comes not as fire, but as a dove, to rest upon Jesus, and to anoint him for a ministry not of condemnation, but of salvation. He came to proclaim good news of salvation, and yes that means he also had to be clear about why people needed salvation, which means he talked about sin and hell and even said that the reason the world hates him is because he testifies against it, that its works were evil (John 7:7). But his purpose in all this, and the tenor with which he did it, was to lead people to salvation, not condemnation. If that’s the Spirit you’ve received, keep in step with that Spirit.

 

And ask God to fill you with more of that Spirit. Did you catch what Jesus was doing when the Spirit descended? Verse 21 tells us that when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form. Since the Spirit rested on Jesus, the moment you receive Jesus by faith, you are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, and yet, from that day forward, we remain dependent on the Holy Spirit’s ministry in our lives if we are to bear his fruit. How can we walk in more of the Spirit’s fullness? We must continue to receive him from Jesus as we let the word of Christ dwell richly in us (Col 3:16, Eph 5:18), and we must pray, and ask our Father in heaven to fill us with His Spirit (Luke 11:13). Charles Spurgeon was once asked what was more important, meditation on scripture or prayer, and he said that’s like asking what’s more important, breathing in or breathing out? Taking in the word of Christ, breathing back out our prayers to the Father—that’s the basic respiratory system of life with Christ, and the basic path to a greater fullness of God’s Spirit.

 

Do you lack conviction of sin? Pray, and ask God to send his Spirit to convict you of sin. Do you see an unbelieving neighbor or family member you so desire to be saved? Pray, and ask God to send his Spirit to convict them of their sin, and grant them repentance that leads to life. Do you lack a sense of God’s love for you? Pray, and ask God to send his Spirit to testify with your spirit that you are his child. Are you weary in your service of him? Pray, and ask God to strengthen you by the power of his Spirit. Do you wish to be more useful in God’s service? Pray, and ask God to gift you by his Spirit. Do you see a need for greater gentleness in yourself? Pray, and ask God to fill you with that fruit of his Spirit. Do you see a need for greater boldness in yourself? Pray, and ask God to give you boldness from his Spirit to keep speaking the word without fear.

 

The Spirit descended on Jesus as Jesus prayed, and as we remain dependent on the Spirit, we pray that the Father would fill us with the Spirit. But here the anointing of the Spirit for Jesus is unto an office, an office that will become clearer as we see that Jesus was not only anointed by God’s Spirit; he was declared to be God’s Son.

 

He was declared to be God’s Son

 

So when the Spirit descends on Jesus in bodily form, we read next in verse 22 that a voice came from heaven that said, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Here Psalm 2 is in the background. It speaks of how the nations rage against the LORD, and against his anointed, so there’s that idea of an anointed one. Then when God speaks to that anointed one, listen to what God says: “You are my son; today I have begotten you” (Psalm 2:7). It’s from this Psalm that Israelites before Jesus’ time got this idea of a messiah, which is the Hebrew word for anointed one, or of a Christ, which comes from the Greek word for anointed one. We can also see in Psalm 2 that this anointed one, this son, was anointed specifically to rule on God’s behalf; that’s why the nations rage against the LORD and against his anointed. So when God says to Jesus, “You are my Son,” you can also read him saying “You are my Messiah” or “You are my King” as in the king I myself have anointed by my Spirit.

 

Before diving into that deeper, notice here a clear revelation of the trinity. The Trinity is the doctrine in which Christians confess God to be one God, who exists eternally in three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God, and yet there are not three gods, but one God. The Bible teaches that there is only one God all throughout, and that confession was central to God’s people from the time of Deuteronomy 6:4, which says, “Hear, O Israel; the LORD our God; the LORD is one.” So there is only one God, and yet the Bible also speaks of the Father as God, the Son as God, and the Holy Spirit as God. How can that be? One erroneous attempt to explain it is called modalism, also known as Sabellianism. The idea here is that God is really just one being and one person, but he reveals himself in three different modes: Sometimes he shows up as Father, other times he shows up as Son, other times he shows up as Spirit. But this passage creates a real problem for modalism: If the three persons are really just three different ways one person shows up, like three different outfits he puts on, how can all three be present at once, as in this passage, and even speak to one another, as we see here? The Son is coming out of the water, the Spirit is descending, and the Father is speaking. Therefore, there are three persons in God, not just three modes of one person’s revelation.

 

There is an eternal depth, then, behind these words: “You are my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Though we learn in verse 23 that God spoke these words to the 30-year-old human Jesus of Nazareth, that human nature only ever existed in union with the divine person of the eternal son of God. Jesus is God’s beloved son, who he loved not only on this day, and not only for those 30 years of his life on earth, but Jesus is God’s Son who he loves eternally, and with whom he is eternally well pleased. God the Father has never existed for a moment without loving this Son. God the Father has never existed for a moment without being well pleased with this Son. What God is eternally is a Father communicating all that he is, all of his Godness, all of his glory, all that is truly lovable, to a Son, who he therefore loves supremely, and with whom he is therefore supremely well pleased. We only have the dimmest sense of what such a love is like—a love of infinite intensity, a love of unfailing strength, a love of unwavering constancy, a love of undiluted purity, a love not compelled by need, but a love born of pure delight. What a sad commentary on the state of our souls that we so often love the world and the things in it instead. As we pray for God to fill us with his Spirit, let us ask him to give us a greater knowledge of the love the Father has for the Son, and let us ask him to strengthen and purify our love for the Son.

 

And in addition to the love the Father has for the Son eternally, Luke has already told us that up to this point Jesus had been growing in his humanity in wisdom, in stature, and in favor, not only with man, but with God. He hadn’t begun his public ministry yet; again, verse 23 tells us that he was about thirty years of age when he began it. So what was he doing? He was loving the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving his neighbor as himself. He was not taking the Lord’s name in vain. He was remembering the sabbath day, to keep it holy. He was honoring his father and mother. He was blessing those who were evil toward him. He was sexually pure. He was giving generously. He was speaking the truth. And he was content with what the Lord had given him. We can’t make it 30 minutes, let alone 30 days, without in some way falling short of God’s law. And yet at the end of 30 years, God could look at Jesus and say, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

 

God speaks those words to Jesus, but he also speaks them so at least John could hear them, and God then inspired Luke to write them down so that we could know who Jesus was according to God’s very own words. There will come many times in Luke’s Gospel when Jesus isn’t going to look much like a king, or a beloved Son: He’s going to be rejected by his own people, hated, poor, and, toward the end, the only crown he’ll be wearing is a crown of thorns, until he dies a shameful sinner’s death on a cross. From a worldly point of view, Jesus looked like a total loser, especially during his three years of public ministry, and especially at the cross. But in God’s sight, that’s his beloved son, with whom he is well pleased.

 

So too, then, let us not regard Christ from a worldly point of view. Let us view him as God’s beloved Son, with whom God is well pleased, and if God the Father in heaven is well pleased with him, how much should we be? Are there things you wish were different in Jesus? Are there commands you wish he wouldn’t give? Are there things in your life you wish he’d just rend the heavens, come down, and do, and you feel some kind of way about it until he does? Of course, if you love the Lord Jesus, you will yearn for his return, when he himself rends the heavens and comes down, but do you yearn for that day because you yearn for him, and can you trust him with the timing of that day, even while your life is what it is today? This is God’s beloved son; let us rejoice in him. Let us regard him based on what God says about him.

 

And let us regard ourselves based on what God says about us. If you are united to Jesus by faith, God also calls you his beloved son, and in Christ, he is well pleased with you. What’s true of Jesus is now true of you, because you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:4). If you’re a believer in Jesus but you still live most days like God is disappointed with you, to whose voice are you listening? If you’re a believer in Jesus but you hesitate to pray, because deep down you aren’t sure you’re really welcome in God’s presence, to whose voice are you listening?

 

Perhaps you say, “Yes but how can I know that I really am a child of God? I’ve never seen the sky open, the Spirit descend on me like a dove, and the Father himself telling me that I am his beloved son, with whom he is well pleased.” That’s true; Jesus is the ultimate Son of God, and so what happens to him here is unique. He is God’s Son, in himself, full stop. We become sons of God by union with him. So how can you know you are really a son of God? You can know by faith in Jesus, trusting that if you have him, you have all you need to be adopted into God’s family. Some still ask, “Yes but how can I know I’ve truly believed in him? Don’t some profess faith, while remaining apart from him?” Yes that’s true; not everyone who says they believe in Jesus actually believes in Jesus. A lot more could and has been said about this; if you’re struggling with it, come talk to me after the service. But for now let me just cut to the conclusion and say this is another area in which you will have to depend on the Holy Spirit. Who can ultimately convince you that you are God’s son? Not I, not a priest, and not yourself. Who can ultimately convince you that you are God’s son? Only the Holy Spirit can. So if that assurance is lacking, ask him to fill you with his Holy Spirit, to testify with your spirit that you are God’s son (Rom 8:16).

 

And let us not only regard Christ and ourselves according to who God says we are; let us also regard one another that way. I would not encourage you toward so-called “color-blindness,” in which we pretend not to notice worldly differences between one another or ways those differences affect our lives in this world. But if you find there are certain fellow church members to whom you never seem to talk, pop the hood on that. Are you seeing them as God sees them, or regarding them according to some worldly standard? Listen to how the apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote to the church in Rome: “To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints” (Rom 1:7). What are your fellow church members? They are those who are loved by God and called to be saints. They are God’s beloved children, with whom he is well pleased, not because they measure up to your standards and treat you the way you want to be treated, but because they are in Christ, God’s ultimate son. Let us regard one another that way.

 

But there is still a difference between us and Jesus. He is the ultimate Son of God, finally, because he was like God’s first son.

 

He was like God’s first son

 

So after the brief timestamp of verse 23, the rest of our passage is a genealogy, tracing Jesus’ lineage through Joseph, and landing all the way back at the first human, Adam. There are a number of interesting things we could talk about in the details of the genealogy, but for now just notice how it ends: With Adam, the son of God. Coming right on the heels of God’s big pronouncement that Jesus is his beloved son, with whom he is well pleased, this sheds further light for us on what it means for Jesus of Nazareth to be the ultimate son of God. He is, in some way, like Adam, the only other person in this genealogy who is called “the son of God.” How is he like him?

 

Well, if you read the genealogy the whole way through, what’s the obvious thing it’s tracking? Fatherhood. Joseph is the son of Heli, Heli the son of Matthat, and so on. But when it gets to Adam, what’s the challenge? Adam had no human father. He was the direct creation of God, and now we can see the connection to Jesus: He too only has a “supposed” father, as verse 23 puts it. Luke has to put it that way because Luke already told us the story earlier in his Gospel of how Jesus was born of a virgin woman when the Holy Spirit overshadowed her, such that while Joseph is legally his father, the voice from heaven didn’t come and say, “You are Joseph’s Son, with whom he is well pleased”; he said “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” Jesus is like God’s first son because he too was the direct creation of God, and the only man besides Adam who is.

 

And he’s the ultimate son of God because he’s not only the first human since Adam to be the direct creation of God; he’s also the last. In the Old Testament, the part of the Bible written before Jesus came, there are something like 25-30 genealogies, lists of descent like this one. People who try to read the Bible in a year are often frustrated by how many of them there are, and wonder why they’re there. Do you know how many genealogies there are in the New Testament? Two. And do you know who’s at the end of each? Jesus. He is both the second Adam and the last Adam, because he succeeded where Adam failed. In him humanity reaches its end goal, its highest glory. He was like God’s first son, but he’s also unlike him in at least two important ways.

 

For one thing, while both Adam and Jesus were the direct creation of God, born without a human father, Jesus was born of a human mother, while Adam was not, and Jesus was legally Joseph’s son, while Adam was no human’s son. There is a legitimate genealogy of Jesus; there is no genealogy of Adam. Jesus was born of a woman from Adam’s line. Adam started with a blank slate as the first human, but Jesus was born of a fallen woman, and began with a fallen humanity. If you’ll allow me an admittedly weak sports analogy, Adam was the starting quarterback when the game was 0-0 and 60 minutes were still on the clock, but Jesus came in for that same team, the human team, when we were already down an apparently insurmountable deficit. Adam was created in a pristine garden in which there was no death, no sin, and no pain, in which God walked with man in the cool of the day. Jesus was born into a world under the curse of sin, in which people had to get baptized for the forgiveness of their sins, and in which people were under God’s curse.

 

Which brings us to a second important way in which Jesus was not like Adam. Jesus was not like Adam in that Adam failed, where Jesus did not. Adam was God’s first son, made in the image and likeness of God, and who was therefore required to obey God his Father under commandments that were not burdensome. In that pristine garden the Lord God made trees that were good for food and a delight to the eyes, and he told Adam he may eat from every one of them…except one. And yet it was that tree from which Adam ate, and in so doing, merited death not only for himself, but for all who would proceed from him according to ordinary generation. God had appointed him the head of humanity, such that his sin was our sin, and his curse our curse. Each of us, then, having been born of his flesh, were not born into a 0-0 game. We were born already under the curse, and inclined in ourselves toward the same sin.

 

That became painfully clear in the history that followed. Adam and his wife, Eve, who sinned with him, then had two sons, Cain and Abel, and Cain murdered Abel. As they had more kids, and their kids had more kids, sin also multiplied, but God still had a plan to save some for his glory. So eventually God gathered some of those sinful humans into a nation called Israel, and do you know what he called Israel? His son (Hosea 11:1). And much like Adam, he gave Israel his law, and told them that if they did these things, they’d live by them (Lev 18:5). He even gave Israel a king, an anointed one, whose name shows up in this genealogy as well: David, and he promised David that one of his sons would always be on his throne, then here’s what he said about him: “I will be to him a father, and he will be to me a son” (2 Sam 7:14). So Israel was God’s son, and Israel’s king represented Israel as God’s son, much like Adam. But also much like Adam, David sinned against God, and the kings that came after him did as well, until the whole nation was cursed in exile because of their sins. Adam wasn’t the beloved son with whom God was well pleased. David wasn’t the beloved son with whom God was well pleased. Israel wasn’t the beloved son with whom God was well pleased.

 

But now here at age 30, we hear from the voice from heaven speaking to Jesus, and here’s what he says: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” The second Adam and the last Adam has succeeded where the first Adam failed. By age 30, he was well-pleasing to God. From here, we saw last week how in the next passage he succeeded when tempted, and ultimately we’ll see him obeying his Father all the way to the cross, on which all of our sins were placed on him, and he paid for them in full. With that final act of obedience complete, he received the reward, the same reward that was held out to Adam had he obeyed, the same reward none of us could attain by our efforts: Eternal life. He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, where he now reigns from his rightful throne as the Son of God, and from where he sends us his Spirit to make us alive, assure us that we are God’s children, and keep us until his return.

 

If you are here today and you are not yet a believer in Jesus, you are still “in Adam” in the words of the Bible. All of us were born of Adam’s flesh, and so all of us inherit Adam’s curse. But if you receive Jesus by faith, it’s not like you start back at 0-0, where Adam was. You aren’t the next Adam. Jesus is the last Adam, and when you receive him, you receive the reward for his victory. The game’s already been won. You are declared righteous in God’s sight the moment you receive Jesus. You have eternal life the moment you receive Jesus. You are adopted as God’s son, with whom he is well pleased, the moment you receive Jesus. And you have God’s Spirit the moment you receive Jesus. Even your imperfect acts of obedience are now pleasing in God’s sight if they are offered to God through Jesus. So keep in step with God’s Spirit, and pray for a greater fullness of him. Live by who God says you are, regard others according to who God says they are, but most of all, regard Jesus according to who God says he is: His beloved Son, with whom he is well pleased.