What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?
You know and you confess from the Holy Scriptures that He is both David’s Son and David’s Lord, because He is the one true God, begotten of God the Father from all eternity, but He is also the true Man, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of the house and lineage of David.
But now, then, let us also ask, Whose son are you? Who is your father?
On the one hand, according to your flesh and blood, by nature, you are a child of Adam. But on the other hand, as you are baptized into Christ Jesus, born again in the washing of the water with His Word and Spirit, you are a child of God by grace. So, whose son are you? Who is your father?
Fathers train and teach their children to embrace their values and to follow their way of life. They train and teach their sons, in particular, to become men like themselves. And sons, indeed, both resemble and emulate their fathers — whether biological or adopted — whether for good or ill.
So, too, as you have heard from the Lord this morning, you 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, named you with His Name, and made you His child and heir, you are to live according to His Word, to love Him above all, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
The Ten Commandments, summarized in the two great commandments of love — the first and second tables of the Law — describe the life that God desires for you, the life that 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 everything else. And to live that life by faith in Him is to love your neighbor as the Lord loves you — to do no harm, but to serve and care for others in Christ Jesus.
Everything depends upon these two great commandments of God. All the Law and the Prophets hinge on these Words of the Lord, which reveal His good and acceptable Will for life and love.
That Will of God is first of all a matter of the heart. If the heart is not right, then nothing else will be right, nor can it be. So it is first of all a matter of the heart, which is then also manifested in the flesh. For as you believe and as you love in your heart, so do you speak and act and live by faith.
Where, then, do you see such perfect faith and holy love enfleshed? Where are all the Law and all the Prophets fulfilled, completed, and perfected to the glory of our God and Father in heaven? 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. In yourself, in your thoughts, words, and actions, you perceive nothing but sin and death, from which you can by no means set yourself free. You do not live as God the Lord has commanded.
So, then, whose son are you? Who is your father? Is it the one true God or the devil himself? What do your words and actions confess? How do you live in relation to God and your neighbor?
But what about the Christ? Whose Son is He? He is, indeed, 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 holy love. And that holy and righteous heart of His beats for you within His own Body of human flesh and blood. So does He also live and die for you and your salvation.
All of God’s commandments, from the greatest to the least, from the first to the last, the Lord Jesus Christ has kept perfectly. Not only that, but He is the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets, accomplishing all things in faith toward His God Father, and in love for God and for all people.
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 behold the open heart of God the Father. For it is there on the Cross that God has put all His enemies beneath the feet of Christ, His Son. Sin, death, the devil, and hell are all crushed beneath the heel of the Woman’s Seed, who is bruised and dies that you might live.
But you are not His enemy, and He does not crush and destroy you. 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, Cross, and Resurrection, and your Holy Baptism openly declare.
In His Resurrection from the dead, the Life and Holiness of God are forever established for you, and for all who are in Christ Jesus. For whoever 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 bodily Resurrection from the dead you see the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets, the Love of God enfleshed, and the forgiveness of all your sins and the sins of the whole world. You behold the death of death in His dying, and the Life everlasting of body and soul in His rising.
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 brethren. For in His crucified and risen Body of flesh and blood like your own, you see the Father’s gracious adoption of sons.
This is your faith and life, now and forever. Not merely in theory, not simply as an ideal, and not only as some future “pie-in-the sky-by-and-by,” but as a sure and certain reality, a bodily Truth in the Person of Christ the Crucified, who is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity.
It is to the Cross and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, great David’s greater Son, that the Ten Commandments and all the Law and the Prophets point you. He is the one true 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.
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