Opportunity Jesus: Identity as Beloved Son or Daughter of God

Crosspointejupiter   -  

In our reading this week (Chapter 1: Beginnings), Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River. We read that this was more than a model for us to be baptized too, it was two authoritative voices granting this new rabbi authority. God Himself declares the identity of Jesus as His beloved Son. This is a category-shattering announcement. The original audience had a similar phrase from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), sons of God (Genesis 6:2,4; Deuteronomy 32:8; Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7). The sons of God were divine beings, lesser than God, created by God to serve God; a category that we often lump together with angels. They were not considered physical or relational sons in any sense. Your average religious Jew, listening in, had a category for God (greatest being), for sons of God (great beings, lesser than God), and humans (lower God image bearing beings). Yet, at Jesus’s baptism God creates a new category for Jesus: my beloved (agapētós) son. Agapētós is a verbal adjective derived from agape meaning Jesus is unconditionally divinely-loved. 

Where does the original audience place this divinely-loved man in the categories of beings? He is unlike them who still consider themselves in spiritual exile from God. He is connected to God’s love. He is unlike the sons of God, for even some of them had fallen into judgment. The mystery of it all stokes curiosity in a few people who will decide to follow Jesus and find out more. 

What does this mean for us? The apostle Paul wrote to the churches in Galatia, “…in Christ you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27). When we trust in Jesus, a transaction happens in God’s eyes, where we go from bankrupt sinner standing in line for judgment to a beloved son or daughter of God. Like a cloak that protects us from judgment, we have put on Christ and we only receive God’s unconditional divine love. When we renew our minds to this truth, it transforms the way we think about our lives, our situations, and our God’s posture towards us. 

How does being a “beloved son or daughter of God” shape your understanding of how God views you? How you view yourself?