The Unshakable Certainty
You
brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to
come?” thundered Yochanan, son of Zechariah,
as he stood waist-deep in the Jordan River and watched the
religious leaders of Israel gather on the riverbank.
It wasn’t what they wanted to hear, nor were they
expecting it. After all, they were God’s people, weren’t
they? So why this scathing rebuke?
It was obvious to Yochanan that the ax was already laid
at the root of their fruitless branches — the time
for reform had passed. The tree was dead, and Yochanan had
been born for the very purpose of pronouncing it so, and
preparing the way for the Messiah, as his father had prophesied,
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of
the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare
his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in
the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy
of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow
of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
(Luke 1:76-79, ESV)
Zechariah, an aged priest at the time of his son’s
birth, had known well the condition of Israel. His people
were in dire need of salvation, for in spite of their great
heritage they were sitting in darkness and the shadow of
death. His heart ached for his people. And in the thirty
years since he had spoken those words, the darkness of their
fallen religion had only increased. How Zechariah’s
heart would have pounded if he could have seen and heard
his son that day.
But when Yochanan saw Yahshua of Nazareth, whom he
knew to be the Messiah, coming down the riverbank toward
him to be baptized, his confidence was shaken. Who was he
to baptize the Messiah? His objection received only the
cryptic response, “Permit it at this time; for in
this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
At that, he immersed Yahshua into the muddy waters, and
as He emerged, Yochanan saw what appeared to be a dove alight
upon Him, and heard a voice from heaven saying, “You
are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Why did the Messiah Himself need to be baptized? And why
did the Father speak those words audibly to His Son as soon
as He emerged from the waters? The answers to these questions
touch the very nature and purpose of the Son of God —
His humanity and divinity. In past centuries many have died
over questions such as these, and even today there are some
who would call for our blood, if they could, for writing
what you are about to read. But for those who love the truth,
these words will ring true and answer some of the deepest
questions of your heart.
God or Man?
It is a well-established doctrine in Christianity that Jesus
is both fully God and fully Man, but what exactly does this
mean? What are the practical implications for those who
look to Him as their Savior? Most of us have grown up with
the image of baby Jesus with a halo on his head, and pictures
of a striking, handsome adult Jesus. Even the typical pictures
of the crucifixion show a fair-skinned, unblemished man
with a little slit in his side and a placid expression on
his face. Who can identify with such a Jesus, so beautiful
in his perfection, unaffected by sufferings?
But the scriptures give quite a different picture. They
tell of a man who was physically unimpressive, the son
of a poor Hebrew woman, who for most of His life worked
as a carpenter. Although He was miraculously conceived,
few people took notice of this fact. And although there
are fanciful things written about Him in apocryphal writings,
the Bible gives only a small but essential glimpse of His
upbringing.
His family had gone to Jerusalem for the Passover and discovered
on their way home that Yahshua was not in their company.
Evidently He was a trusted son whom they assumed was serving
in some way amongst their caravan, perhaps helping care
for the animals. They returned to Jerusalem and searched
for several days before they found Him in the Temple, amazing
the teachers with His understanding of the scriptures. He
seemed surprised that they hadn’t known where to find
Him, and they were equally surprised by His question, “Did
you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?”
Although His parents knew that He was destined to be the
Messiah of Israel, clearly they did not expect Him to come
into that role so young, nor did they understand what it
entailed. But this brief snapshot of His life shows His
fascination with the scriptures and how He gave Himself
to the task of understanding them. This story begins and
ends with two similar statements that show a progression
taking place:
And the child grew and became strong in spirit, filled
with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. …
And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor
with God and men. (Luke 2:40,52)
Yahshua was not born with the awareness of who He was
or what lay ahead of Him. He was born a human baby just
like any other healthy baby, except for two invisible qualities:
first, that He had not inherited Adam’s fallen nature,
and second, that His human spirit was one with the divine
Spirit. Neither of these differences from the rest of
humanity would be readily apparent, however, in a newborn
baby. The effects of the Fall take time to be manifested
in human babies, and the soul’s awareness of the spiritual
realm also takes time to develop. So although He must certainly
have been a remarkably peaceful baby, He was yet a baby,
with a baby’s soul — intellect, will, and emotions.
From that point He grew, both physically and in the maturity
of His soul.
Soul and Spirit
Human beings are spiritual creatures. A man’s soul
is like the sails on a ship, designed to be filled with
a spirit just as a ship’s sails are filled with the
wind, so as to propel his life on a course. The human spirit
(distinct from the soul) was designed as his vital connection
to the Spirit of man’s Creator, the means by which
man (male and female) could orient his soul so as to be
filled with that Spirit. Adam was created with this vital
connection intact, with the infinite potential of having
his soul (intellect, will, and emotions) fully available
to his Creator so as to fulfill his created purpose. But
when Adam fell, that vital connection was severed. Man’s
spirit lay dormant, and his soul lay vulnerable to whatever
spirit he was exposed to, just like a ship adrift in the
sea.
There are both good and evil spirits at large on the earth.
The good spirits have commonly been called angels,
while the bad have been called demons. They are
both normally invisible; just like the wind, their presence
can only be discerned by their effect. Most people are not
sensitive enough to realize when they are being propelled
by a spirit, and some even deny their very existence. But
spiritual creature that he is, a man’s soul is always
being affected by spiritual forces. Fortunately, he has
a conscience by which he instinctively knows good from evil.
The conscience is like a compass by which a man can orient
his “ship” so as to spill an errant wind from
his sails, or to fill them with a fair breeze, according
to where he wants his life to go, or what effect he wants
it to have on others. But the tragic reality is that man’s
fallen inclination to satisfy his short-sighted selfish
desires makes him at best an imperfect helmsman and at worst
a menace to all afloat on the “sea” of life.
As a result, all men’s souls are ravaged and in eternal
peril.
Son of Man and Son of God
Enter the Son of Man, conceived by means of an unfallen
human seed and possessed of a human spirit vitally connected,
indeed fused together with the Spirit of His heavenly Father.
His soul, as it developed and matured, was always sensitive
to that Spirit, fully yielded to the divine Word within
Him. It was not that He had no choice in the matter. He
had a free human will with which He had to make choices,
just as any human being. He had to face the temptations
common to all men, and overcome them by the strength of
His communion with His Father. The writer of the letter
to the Hebrews repeatedly emphasizes this fact:
Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh
and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same…
Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren,
that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in
things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the
sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered,
being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.
(Hebrews 2:14-18)
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize
with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has
been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)
In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers
and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who
was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because
of His reverent submission. Although He was a son, He
learned obedience through what He suffered. And being
made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation
to all who obey Him… (Hebrews 5:7-9)
These verses are meaningless if He was not fully human,
having a free will by which He could choose to obey or disobey
both His earthly parents and His heavenly Father. It says
He learned obedience through what He suffered.
It does not mean that He was ever rebellious and had to
suffer the consequences, for He did not ever sin, but His
obedience was perfected as He gave Himself to it. It was
not an effortless matter for Him to overcome temptation.
All His life, from His childhood until the day He died,
He suffered greatly to make the right choices, to deny what
would be pleasant or comfortable to His flesh when it was
in conflict with the will of His earthly parents as a child,
or His heavenly Father as an adult. As a child, the temptations
that came to Him and the suffering required to resist them
were those common to children. But as He grew up, the temptations
were greater and the suffering greater. He increased in
His capacity to give Himself to the suffering and surrender
His will to His Father’s will. This was the
learning that prepared Him for the greatest suffering
of all — the cross and the agonies of death. It was
out of love that He gave Himself to His suffering.
For the Joy set before Him
The Spirit that was in Him bonded Him to the heart of
His Father and gave Him the courage and determination to
fulfill His purpose. But just as overcoming temptation wasn’t
automatic for Him, neither was it automatic or effortless
for Him to understand who He was or the cause for which
He was born. He began life as a human baby, and His mind
at birth was ready and waiting to be filled, just as that
of any other human baby. He did not have a “crystal
ball” with which to see into the future. Even in the
last days of His time on earth He did not know the day or
the hour when He would return; only the Father knew that.
But what He clearly did know by that time was “everything
in the Scriptures concerning Himself.”
Yahweh, the God of Israel, very carefully selected the
best possible mother and foster-father to raise His Son.
He chose the most humble and most spiritual man and woman
from the line of David out of the small remnant who were
truly “waiting for the consolation of Israel.”
He sent His chief messenger, the angel Gabriel, to prepare
both Miriam and Yoceph for the responsibility that was
being given to them, making it perfectly clear to them that
this miraculously conceived child entrusted to them was
destined to be the Messiah.
But far from being puffed up or boastful about their Son’s
destiny, they quietly shouldered the awesome responsibility
to raise Him in a way that would help prepare Him for that
destiny. Surely they filled Him with the stories of their
people: of the faith of Abraham and the promise made to
him; of his sacrifice of Isaac; of Jacob and his twelve
sons; of their deliverance from Egypt; of Moses and the
Law; of the Levitical priesthood, the tabernacle and the
sacrifices; of the crossing of the Jordan and the conquest
of Canaan; of the judges and kings of Israel; of the words
of the prophets and the consequences of not heeding them,
and of course the wisdom of the Proverbs. And surely as
Yahshua learned to read the scriptures for Himself, He filled
His soul with them, praying earnestly for the wisdom and
insight to understand their meaning, struggling to know
who He was and what the prophets had spoken of Him. The
divine Spirit in Him revealed to Him who He was very gradually
as He matured and as He earnestly sought to know His Father’s
heart and mind. That is how the Spirit is with all His own
people — He hides Himself so that they will diligently
seek Him, just as King David taught his son Solomon:
“As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of
your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with
a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts and understands
all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will
be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast
you off forever.” (1 Chronicles 28:9)
Yahshua also observed the troubling realities of life among
His people. He saw the grinding poverty of many, and the
callous disregard of it by the wealthy few who were often
among the religious elite. He saw the lame and blind animals
the merchants were selling in the temple courts, and observed
who bought them. He took note of the long and pretentious
public prayers of the Pharisees, and the humble masses of
the common people, like sheep without a shepherd, longing
to be led out of the futility of their lives.
Set like Flint
Compassion for His people and the compelling urgency of
the Word of God welled up in His soul in steadily increasing
measure and clarity over the years that He labored as a
carpenter in Galilee, waiting for the fullness of time.
When He heard that Yochanan had begun preaching in the wilderness
of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand! Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight,”
echoing the words of the prophet Malachi, His heart
began to pound. “Was this the time? Was He really
the one?” Many “messiahs” had come and
gone before Him. All had thought that they were Israel’s
liberation, but proved to be just thieves and robbers, leaving
the people drowning in disappointment and despair. Was He
ready to walk the prophetic path that lay before Him? He
was under no illusion as to where it would end. The words
of the prophet Isaiah were engraved in His heart:
He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows,
and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide
their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed
for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that
brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every
one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity
of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet
he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the
slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is
silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and
judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation,
who considered that he was cut off out of the land of
the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
(Isaiah 53:3-8, ESV)
Having made His decision, Yahshua walked down the banks
of the muddy Jordan River, His face set like flint to
accomplish the purpose for which He was born. His countenance
bore the mark of that inner struggle and the determination
of His soul. He had us in mind. In the Jews who came to
be baptized by John, the Law had done its full work —
they came because of their sense of sin and guilt, which
the ritual sacrifice of the blood of goats could not extinguish.
Sin drove them to the voice of hope. They felt their need
for God and the forgiveness of God, for freedom from the
consciousness of sin and guilt. In His baptism, Yahshua
identified Himself with sinful man; He took upon Himself
their sorrow, their contrition, their search for God,
and became one in heart with the men He came to save.
To every man comes the moment within his heart and soul
of a little shiver of doubt, a faint question mark, the
terrible feeling that he may be mistaken, the grim possibility
that he may be on the wrong road. Yahshua’s baptism
was the moment when the last of these questions perished
forever. As He emerged from the waters, the voice that He
most desired to hear rang out loud and clear, audible for
the first time to His natural ears, “You are My beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased.” In that moment
He knew in the deepest recesses of His heart that His Father
was God and He was His Son. He received the utter conviction
of the approval of His Father, of the certainty of His will
for Him — the unshakable certainty that He was the
Son of God, the Messiah of Israel, as revealed in the Prophets.
It was not for the sake of the crowd that His Father spoke
in an audible voice, but to confirm in His beloved Son the
absolute truth of all that He had understood in His years
of preparation, and to give Him the unshakable certainty
that He was on course to do His Father’s will. His
preparation was over and the task had begun. The Holy Spirit
rested upon Him like a dove to empower Him for all that
lay ahead of Him, beginning with the first test:
And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the
Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for
forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing
during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry…
(Luke 4:1-2)
It was no accident that the first challenge from the evil
one was to His very identity: “If you are the Son
of God…” He needed the unshakable certainty
of who He was in order to endure this testing. Had He given
in to the evil one’s taunting to seek His own comfort
or glory, He would have sinned and disqualified Himself
from being the sacrifice for our sins. Instead, by maintaining
His communion with the Holy Spirit even at the end of His
physical strength, He overcame the persistent temptations
of the evil one, and when He had passed the test in the
wilderness, angels came to nourish and strengthen Him.
The test was real, with the real possibility of failure.
It was not a performance by God masquerading as a man. It
was the very real suffering of a very real man who overcame
through the spiritual communion He maintained with His Father
in heaven based on the unshakable certainty that He was
a son doing His Father’s will. That is how He lived
His entire life, and that is how He expects His followers
to live their lives, overcoming by the means of grace He
opened up for them.
Because He overcame as a man, He was able to take man’s
place in death. On the cross He said, “It is finished.”
He had finished the course He had begun at His
baptism, having maintained vital communion with His Father,
never committing sin to His dying breath. Never once did
He have a complaint against His Father. He knew who He was
and what He was to do. Then, in the final moments of His
life, the full weight of our sins came upon Him. In
that instant, His Father turned His face from Him for the
first time in His life. He cried out, “MY GOD,
MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME!” Then He went
into death — as a man, alone, without the help of
His Father — which is exactly what awaits all who
die without a sacrifice for their sins. As gruesome and
terrible as His dying on the cross was, it was in death,
which is unimaginably worse, that He actually paid for man’s
sin.
His unblemished life was an acceptable sacrifice, the
spotless Lamb of God that paid for our sins. Just as
He took identity with us in His baptism, utterly committing
His life to die for us, so also in our baptism we must be
united with Him in His death, utterly committing our
lives to live for Him. Apart from the total surrender
and abandonment of our lives, we cannot have the unshakable
certainty that we are sons of God who are doing His will
by the grace and strength He provides. And apart from that
unshakable certainty we will not overcome the temptations
of the evil one, but will instead seek our own comfort and
glory.
There must be a people who will walk in the same way in
which He walked, having the same unshakable certainty
that He had, in order for the evil ruler of this age to
be bound and for Yahshua the Messiah to return and establish
His kingdom on this earth. Do you long for that unshakable
certainty that you are His son, doing His will in His Body
on earth? He lives in every place where His people dwell
together in unity, lifting up holy hands without wrath or
dissension. That is where He honors His sons who serve
Him by the grace and strength He provides.
Matthew 3:1-17 is one account of the ministry
of the man commonly called “John the Baptist.”
Yahshua
is the Hebrew name which is commonly rendered as Jesus
in English.
Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22
Isaiah 53:2-3
Luke 2:24 shows that Joseph and Mary gave
the offering permitted in the Law (Leviticus 12:8) for those
who were too poor to offer a lamb.
Mark 6:3
The ovum in Mary’s womb had been fertilized
by a preserved pure human seed, untainted by the fall of
Adam, miraculously implanted in her womb by God. This is
implied by Luke 1:35, and confirmed in 1 Corinthians 15:45,
where the apostle Paul calls Yahshua the second or last
Adam. Just as the first Adam was created sinless,
so the second Adam was born in that same pure state, unaffected
by the first Adam’s fall.
The eternally existing Word of God (John
1:1), who is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, was
“enfleshed” (John 1:14) in the human body prepared
for Him (Hebrews 10:5) in Mary’s womb. This is the
miracle called incarnation. In John 18:37, Yahshua
spells it out: “For this cause I was born, and for
this cause I have come into the world…” A human
son was born, and in the same event, the eternally
existing, divine Word of God came into the world
to dwell in that human son.
Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:42
The Greek word translated as learned means
to increase; to learn by use and practice.
Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32; Acts 1:7
Luke 24:27
Luke 2:25
“Mary and Joseph” in English.
Luke 1:32-33; Matthew 1:21
Matthew 3:2-3; Malachi 3:1
Isaiah 50:4-7
Luke 7:29-30
Isaiah 57:15; 53:4
Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22
Matthew 4:11
John 19:30
Luke 13:22,32 (ESV, RSV)
2 Corinthians 5:21; Isaiah 53:6,10,11
Romans 6:23
John 1:29
Romans 6:1-7
2 Corinthians 5:14-15
1 John 2:6; Colossians 1:10
Hebrews 10:13; Revelation 19:7; Acts 3:21 —
This speaks of the restoration of all things in the next
age, after Messiah’s return, when the promise to Abraham
will be fulfilled, restoring the land to Abraham’s
descendents, ruled over by Messiah and His apostles from
the first century, as He prophesied in Matthew 19:28.
1 Timothy 2:8; John 17:20-23
John 12:25-26
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