This year during the season of Lent through Easter Sunday morning we are continue what we started during our Advent season, that is we are looking at some of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the coming Messiah, passages including His life, trials, suffering and crucifixion and finding the New Testament passages that confirm their fulfillment in our Savior, Christ Jesus. Today we continue with a look at Jesus character, in particular that He is God in human flesh.
About the coming Messiah, Isaiah prophecies, “And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. ” (Isaiah 11:2). By inspiration of God, Isaiah sees that the promised Savior would be filled with wisdom and understanding. A reading through the book of Proverbs reminds us that God is described as being wisdom, as it was Wisdom that created the world. John describes Jesus as being the Word and in particular the Word of creation, thus being God in flesh. Jesus describes Himself as being the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Isaiah further foretells that the Savior would have the Spirit of counsel and might. Indeed, Jesus came proclaim words of salvation to all who would hear and believe. Jesus demonstrated His might through the signs, wonders and miracles He preformed giving proof of His divinity, that is that He was God in human flesh.
And Isaiah further foretells that the Savior would have the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord. As the Apostle Paul so well state, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Indeed, apart from Jesus, apart from faith in Jesus there is and can be no truth nor wisdom.
In his Gospel account Luke bears witness of Jesus even from birth as he writes, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). Luke writes about Jesus’ life at the age of twelve when He was in Jerusalem in the temple, probably celebrating His bar mitzvah, being declared a young Jewish man, that Jesus was speaking questioning and answering questions of the teachers in the temple, that Jesus was seen to have wisdom. And Luke makes note that Jesus grew in wisdom.
But not only does Luke write concerning Jesus wisdom he also writes concerning Jesus growing in stature, that is in physical growth. Jesus was a human being. He was born as a baby, an infant. He grew to boyhood and ultimately to manhood. Thus, He grew not only in wisdom, but also in stature.
And Luke writes that Jesus grew in favor with God and man. Evidently Jesus was a likable person, at least as a young boy and young man, up until He had to confront the Pharisees and teachers of the law. So, according to Luke, Jesus, true God in human flesh continued to grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
When Jesus reached the age of thirty, after His baptism by John in the Jordan river, being ordained into His office of ministry, when Jesus preaches in His home town, Luke writes Jesus’ words. Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,” (Luke 4:18). The words Jesus read were the words from our Old Testament reading and Jesus preaches that He is the fulfillment of these words of Isaiah the prophet.
The very reason Jesus came into the world was to preach the good news of salvation, which He would earn. God promised a Savior back in the beginning, in the Garden of Eden. God reiterated His promise throughout the Old Testament. God narrowed the family line of His fulfillment through the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, King David, and so on. Jesus was born from the line of David, in Bethlehem, the hometown of King David. Jesus was born to preach the good news of His coming into the world to bring forgiveness of sins, to reconcile humanity to with God.
Not only did Jesus proclaimed the miracles He would perform, He also performed the miracles He proclaimed. Jesus healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute, cast out demons, feed the hungry, walked on water, raised the dead, and most importantly forgave sins. Jesus demonstrated that He was truly God in flesh through the signs, wonders and miracles He performed.
Indeed, most importantly, and the reason Jesus was born was to proclaim freedom from sin, death and the devil. Not only did Jesus proclaim freedom from sin, death and the devil, He earned and paid for our freedom and the freedom from sin for all people of all places of all times. What Adam and Eve could not do, what the whole nation of Israel could not do, what we cannot do, live in perfection, live perfectly obedient live, Jesus did for us, in our place. Jesus lived the perfect life demand of us by God Himself. Jesus took our sins upon Himself and gave us His perfection. Jesus suffered the eternal death penalty of hell, the price for sin, for us on the cross.
What does this mean? The character of Jesus is that He is true God, as we confess in the creeds, conceived by the Holy Spirit, thus He was born perfect and holy. Jesus had to be true God so that He would be born perfect and holy. He was not begotten of a man, conceived in sin, but conceived by God Himself making Him one hundred percent God, perfect and holy.
Not only is Jesus truly God, but His character is that He is also true man, again as we confess in the creeds, born of the human woman, the Virgin Mary. Jesus had to be truly human in order to be our substitute, that is in order to be able to trade His perfect life for our sinful life. The price for sin was set in the Garden of Eden and that price was death, human death for human sin. All the sacrifices of the Old Testament, all the ceremonial sacrifices did not earn, pay for nor give any human forgiveness. All the sacrifices of the Old Testament simply pointed to the one ultimate sacrifice of the human man, Jesus on the cross.
Throughout His earthly life Jesus showed Himself to be the Savior, the one promised in the Garden of Eden. Jesus showed Himself to be the Savior, the one promised because He was perfect in all things. He suffered all the temptations we suffer and even greater temptations and yet He never sinned. He fully obeyed all of God’s Laws perfectly because we cannot. He fulfilled all of God’s promises concerning the Savior, perfectly. Then, of His own free will, not by compulsion nor coercion, He took all our sins and all the sins of all people of all places of all times upon Himself. And He suffered. He suffered the eternal torment of hell for us in our place. He suffered and He died. Yes, God in Jesus died. Our God died, just like you and I will some day die. When He died His God soul exited His body. But we know the whole history, that is we know that He did not stay dead, but on the third day He and rose from the dead victorious over death.
For forty days Jesus showed Himself to be alive. He allowed as many people as possible to see Him alive and to attest to His rising from the dead. Then He ascended to the place from which He descended were He is seated at the right hand of the Father, watching over us, ruling over us and interceding for us. Ten days after His ascension He sent the Holy Spirit who comes to us today through the means of grace, the Word of God, Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution and His Holy Supper to give us faith, to strengthen and keep us in faith and to give us forgiveness and eternal life.
The character of Jesus is that He is God in flesh, the One who created the world, the One who knew man’s sinful tendencies, the One who came into the world to reconcile His creatures with Himself because we would not be able to do so. Jesus, God in flesh, continues today to proclaim good news to us, show us His wisdom and understanding, His counsel and might. He continues to bring us healing and liberty from sin. He continues to work in us the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom. He continues to lavish us with all the good gifts and blessings He has to give because that is His nature and the reason He created us, to love us. Our response is simply to rejoice and say, to God be the glory for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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