Key verse: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him! (Matthew 17:5, NIV)
Table of Contents
Introduction
https://anchor.fm/s/560094ec/podcast/rssThe revelation of this truth “this is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased” should cause every Christian to pause and consider why it was necessary that the Father reveal the Son in such majestic way. The following reasons below are some of the things I have seen the Father’s love for the Son reveal to us:
1. The love of the Father for the Son reveals the eternal and supreme value of the Son and the eternal and supreme preciousness of the Son
We are to know that the Son is of eternal value to the Father. There will never be a time when the Son will stop being loved and being precious to the Father. Even when rejected by men, Christ is still of eternal value and precious to the Father. Concerning Christ’s eternal preciousness Peter says, “The living Stone — rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him (1 Peter 2:4, NIV).
2. The Father’s love for the Son reveals that the Father has lavished on us the fullness of his love by giving us the Son
Jesus is the precious gift for no man deserves him. Surely to hold Christ dearly above anything else is to hold dearly the Father who sent Him to the highest regard. It is true that to miss this beloved Son is to miss eternal life. And To despise Him calls for great condemnation. The foundation that is laid by the Father in the testimony of the Son helps us realize the depth of His Love for us. Our Lord says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love” (John 15:9, NIV). The Love of Christ for us is the reflection of His Father’s love for him. Since the Love of the Father for the Son is eternal and immeasurable, imagine how great is this salvation that brings us to an enjoyment of such love of Christ as that. Since the love of the Father for the Son is the ultimate reality of being secure, imagine how secure we are in the love of Christ. Apostle Paul being sure of the security we have in the Love of Christ he says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, NIV).
Even though we are finite people, God is pleased to have his eternal love in Christ poured in our hearts through the Holy Spirit He has given: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us”( Romans 5:1-5, NIV).
Apostle Paul in his prayer for the saints at Ephesus says, “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19,NIV). When Paul says “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints,” it is clear that he understood how great this love is. The whole family of God is called to comprehend the depth, the height, the length and the width of this love in unity. Not that we can reach the end of this immeasurable love but we are called to comprehend or grasp that it is this same love so great we have been lavished on by the Father. Apostle John when considering the Love of God the Father in Christ for us he says “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1 John 3:1-2, NIV). Surely the Father has lavished his love on us.
God by sending His beloved Son into world to save us from our sins is the greatest revelation of His Love for us. He gave us one so precious to Him. The Son is the gift that the sinner must receive for his eternal redemption.
3. The Father being pleased in the Son is the revelation of the trustworthiness of the Son in revealing who God is
In the article “who is Jesus?” we dealt with the truth that Jesus is God. One of the Biblical truths that brings us also to the truth that Jesus is God is the truth that the Father is pleased in the Son (Matthew 17:5). In Colossians 1:18-20 Paul says, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross (NIV).” This text brings us to the mystery of the incarnation. Both the deity of Christ and his humanity is affirmed by this verse. The mystery of the incarnation calls us to believe and know this truth about the Lord Jesus Christ: He is God (sharing the same nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit) and man (having the full nature of man). We are not to devalue the truth that He is God nor are we to devalue that is also man. The Bible shapes our understanding concerning Christ as God-man. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being (Hebrews 1:3,NIV).” This is to say that the Son even in his human form does not diminish the view of God but represents who God is as God wants us to know Him. In Christ the fullness of God’s glory is revealed undiminished: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form (Colossians 2:9,NIV).” To move away from this truth, it is to move away from the saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world” (1 John 4:2-3, NIV).
Because the Son is God and Loved by God the Father, we have one whose testimony about God is trustworthy “ Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:11,NIV).
Summary
- Jesus Christ is the precious gift the sinner must receive for his eternal life (John 3:16)
- By giving us the Son for our salvation the Father has lavished on us the fullness of his love (1 John 3:1-2).
- The foundation that is laid by the Father in the testimony of the Son helps us realize the depth of His Love for us (John 15:9).
- Because the Son is God and Loved by God the Father, we have one whose testimony about God is trustworthy (John 14:11)
Memory verse: Ephesians 1:3-10
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment — to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
NIV
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Beautiful, may God bless your efforts