Who's Your Daddy?

What do you think about the Christ?  Whose Son is He?

He is both David’s Son and David’s Lord, because He is true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true Man, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of the house and lineage of David.

Now, then, whose son are you?  Who is your father?

You are born a child of Adam, by nature, but you have also been born again of water and the Spirit, a child of God by grace.  So whose son are you?  Who is your father?

Fathers train and teach their children to embrace and follow their values and beliefs.  They train and teach their sons, in particular, to become men like themselves.  And sons both resemble and emulate their fathers, whether biological or adopted.

You, therefore, are to be holy, as the Lord your God and Father is holy.  You are to be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.  As He has redeemed you, taken you to be His own, and adopted you as His child and heir, so are you to live according to His Word, with faith and love toward Him, and with love for your neighbor.

The Ten Commandments, summarized in these two great commandments of love, describe the life that God desires for you, which He would have you live with Him forever.  To live that life is to fear, love, and trust in Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, above all else and above all others.  And to live that life, by faith in Him, is to love your neighbor as yourself: to do no harm to your neighbor, but to serve him, to care for her.

So, everything depends upon these great commandments of God: all the Law and the Prophets.

It is first of all a matter of the heart, and then it is manifested in the flesh.  As you believe and as you love in your heart, so do you speak and act, and so do you live.  Or so you should.

But where, then, do you see such perfect faith and holy love enfleshed?  Where are all the Law and the Prophets fulfilled, completed, and perfected?  Where is the Man who is perfect and holy, as the Father is perfect and holy?

You do not see it or feel it or experience it in your own heart and life; nor in your flesh and blood.

So, whose son are you?  Who’s your daddy?  Is it God or the devil?

What do your words and actions confess?

But what about the Christ?  Whose Son is He?  He is both David’s Son and David’s Lord, because He is both God and Man.  He is the Man after God’s own heart, because He has a heart of perfect faith and love.  And that holy and righteous heart of His beats for you within His human body of flesh and blood.

All of God’s commandments, from the greatest to the least, Christ Jesus has kept perfectly.  All the Law and the Prophets, He has fulfilled completely, in faith toward God His Father, and in love for God and man.  In love for you.

He has kept and fulfilled the first and second table of the Law in both His heart and in His flesh.  He has done so on your behalf, in your place, and for your benefit.  In His perfect faith and faithfulness, in love for you and for His Father, He has gone even to His death upon the Cross.

That is where you see the open heart of God the Father revealed in truth.  For there on the Cross, God has put all His enemies beneath the feet of Christ, His Son: sin, death, the devil and hell.

But you are not His enemy.  You are the object of His love, the object of His fatherly divine goodness and mercy, the recipient of His peace and perfect rest.  You are Christ’s brother in the flesh, His neighbor, and, by His grace, a son of the Father in Him.  That is what His Incarnation and your Holy Baptism into Him openly declare.

In His Resurrection from the dead, therefore, you see the life and holiness of God established for you, and for all who are in Christ Jesus.  For he who believes and is baptized shall be saved, having died and risen with the same Lord Jesus Christ, who is enthroned at the right hand of the Father.

In His Resurrection, you see the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets: the Love of God enfleshed; the forgiveness of all sins; the death of death; and the life everlasting in body and soul.

In the Resurrection, you see God the Father’s open declaration that here is the Son of His heart, the beloved and well-pleasing One.  What is more, this only-begotten Son of the Father has also become the first-begotten from the dead, and the first-born of many brothers.  For in His crucified and risen Body of flesh and blood like yours, you see the Father’s gracious adoption of sons.

This is your faith and life; not in theory, nor simply an ideal, but a bodily truth, a certain reality.

It is to this Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, great David’s greater Son, that the Ten Commandments and all the Law and the Prophets point you.  He is the God you are given to love and trust.  He is the neighbor you are to love, who has first loved you with His whole Self.

Whose Son is He?  Whose son are you?  By the grace of God, the answer is the same.  His God and Father is your God and Father.  For He gives Himself and His life to you, to have and to hold by faith in His forgiveness of all your sins.  And He gives Himself and His life into your flesh with His own holy body and precious blood.  With that, you are given everything, and so shall you live.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.