The Prayers of Jesus E-Book

Mark Jones

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 263

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

"If your soul is dry and your prayers are dead, here is living water to revive and refresh you." — David Murray Jesus's ministry on earth as a human was marked by a devotion to prayer. Through his prayer life, we see what it means to truly depend on God. Examining all of Jesus's prayers recorded in the New Testament, this book reflects on the content and structure of the Son of God's words to his Father— helping us imitate his example as we commune with our heavenly Father as adopted sons and daughters in Christ.

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“This is a book primarily about Jesus and secondarily about prayer. That is reflected in the subtitle Listening to and Learning from Our Savior. Jones guides us in listening to the prayers of Jesus for what they tell us about Jesus, and then what they tell us about prayer. Think of it as a Christology viewed through the lens of Jesus’s prayers. Jones’s purpose is much deeper than just drawing principles of prayer from the prayers of Jesus; he takes us into a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and what he has done for us, and then applies that to the prayer life of the believer in Christ.”

Donald S. Whitney, Associate Dean of the School of Theology and Professor of Biblical Spirituality, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; author, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life and Praying the Bible

“Mark Jones has done it again. He distills the beauty, majesty, and mystery of Jesus into accessible and transformative food for the soul. No other writer today says so much about Christ in such profound, readable, provocative, and rich ways. The humanity, vulnerability, authority, and glory of our Lord jump out of every page. Read this book.”

Dan MacDonald, Senior Pastor, Grace Toronto Church

“In offering us a profoundly theological explanation of why our great God and Savior Jesus Christ needed to pray to his Father in the power of the Holy Spirit, Mark Jones gives us inspiration to do the same. With the assistance of some of the great Puritans of the past, and often poignantly written, The Prayers of Jesus is a bold and biblical exploration of this much-neglected topic.”

Lee Gatiss, Director, Church Society; author, The Forgotten Cross

“Christians with an appetite for knowing Jesus will find a feast in The Prayers of Jesus. Mark Jones serves up the finest in devotional food, teaching us how to come to the Father by observing the prayer life of his Son. I heartily commend not only the bite-size chapters but also Jones’s meaty historical and theological introduction.”

Chad Van Dixhoorn, Professor of Church History, Westminster Theological Seminary

“Few living voices have proved as trustworthy on Christology as Mark Jones. And appropriately, Jones is not just a scholar but also a pastor. Watch as the nuance and care of a scholar’s treatment of Christology takes on the heart and practical concerns of a pastor. As heaven kissed earth in the incarnation, so here Christology forms and fills the everyday life of faith, as we learn the most basic and beautiful of devotional acts from the Master, who is both holy God and fellow man. I’m not aware of another book quite like this remarkable study.”

David Mathis, Executive Editor, desiringGod.org; Pastor, Cities Church, Minneapolis/St. Paul; author, Habits of Grace

“Prayer, it has been said, reveals the truth of who we are. The prayers of Jesus, then, allow us to clearly see our Lord for who he truly is. From beginning to end, this is a book about Jesus. And so, for the Christian reader, this is also a delightful book—one in which every page invites us to know Christ more intimately. Read and be blessed.”

Megan Hill, author, Praying Together and Contentment; Editor, The Gospel Coalition

The Prayers of Jesus

Other Crossway Books by Mark Jones

Faith, Hope, Love: The Christ-Centered Way to Grow in Grace

God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God

The Prayers of Jesus

Listening to and Learning from Our Savior

Mark Jones

The Prayers of Jesus: Listening to and Learning from Our Savior

Copyright © 2019 by Mark Jones

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jorge Canedo Estrada

First printing 2019

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-6281-5 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-6284-6 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-6282-2 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-6283-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Jones, Mark, 1980– author.

Title: The prayers of Jesus: listening to and learning from our Savior / Mark Jones.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018030460 (print) | LCCN 2018050887 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433562822 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433562839 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433562846 (epub) | ISBN 9781433562815 (tp)

Subjects: LCSH: Jesus Christ—Prayers. | Prayer—Christianity.

Classification: LCC BV229 (ebook) | LCC BV229 .J655 2019 (print) | DDC 232.9/5—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018030460

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-02-11 10:23:36 AM

To

Barb Jones, Garry Vanderveen, Delores Vandeyar,

Steven Wedgeworth, Leigh Robinson, Jonathan Tomes,

Alicia Du, Jack Chen, and Alda Craukamp,

with appreciation for help offered during the writing of this book

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introducing Our Praying Lord

 1  Jesus Prayed from His Mother’s Breasts

Psalm 22:9–10

 2  Jesus Prayed “Abba! Father”

John 17:1

 3  Jesus Prayed in Secret

Luke 5:16

 4  Jesus Prayed the Lord’s Prayer

Matthew 6:9–13

 5  Jesus Prayed Joyfully in the Spirit

Luke 10:21

 6  Jesus Prayed Knowing He Would Be Heard

John 11:41–42

 7  Jesus Prayed for His Father’s Glory

John 12:27–28

 8  Jesus Prayed for His Own Glory

John 17:1

 9  Jesus Prayed concerning Eternal Life

John 17:1–2

10  Jesus Prayed for Us to Know God and Himself

John 17:3

11  Jesus Prayed for the Glory He Had Before the World Existed

John 17:4–5

12  Jesus Prayed concerning God’s Self-Disclosure

John 17:6–8

13  Jesus Prayed for the Elect to Glorify Him

John 17:9–10

14  Jesus Prayed That the Father Would Protect the Church

John 17:11–12

15  Jesus Prayed for His Disciples to Be Joyful

John 17:13

16  Jesus Prayed for His Disciples in the World

John 17:14–16

17  Jesus Prayed for His Disciples to Be Sanctified

John 17:17–19

18  Jesus Prayed for Church Unity

John 17:20–21

19  Jesus Prayed for Us to Receive His Glory

John 17:22–23

20  Jesus Prayed for His People to Be with Him

John 17:24

21  Jesus Prayed with Confidence

John 17:25–26

22  Jesus Prayed in Great Distress

Mark 14:32–34

23  Jesus Prayed for Deliverance

Mark 14:35–36

24  Jesus Prayed for His Enemies

Luke 23:34

25  Jesus Prayed with a Loud Cry

Mark 15:34

26  Jesus Prayed His Final Prayer

Luke 23:46

Notes

General Index

Scripture Index

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Crossway for continuing to be a great publisher to work with. They always exceed my expectations, and their diligence and hard work, on so many fronts, is deeply appreciated.

I would like to thank Dr. Bob McKelvey for reading through the entire manuscript of this book and offering many suggestions. I am privileged to have such a gifted friend.

Many thanks to Jorge Canedo Estrada, who continues to design wonderful book covers for me (and also serve wonderfully in the church where I minister).

Also, I could not write books if it were not for the support of my local church: Faith Vancouver/Surrey Presbyterian Church.

My family also continues to show great patience with me when I get into my reading, researching, and writing groove.

A special thank you to Todd Stanton at St. John’s Park Baptist Church in Sydney, Australia, for inviting my family and me down to do a conference on the topic of the prayers of Jesus in August 2018.

Finally, to the readers of this book, thank you for taking the time to read my work. I hope and pray the book will bless your soul and do you much spiritual good as you seek to listen to and learn from the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Introducing Our Praying Lord

As an author and pastor, I wouldn’t want to scare off my readers with an introduction that is more difficult than the rest of the book. We have so much to learn from the prayer life of Jesus. However, understanding and appreciating our praying Lord necessitates knowing him through a good theology of Christ (Christology). Even the word Christology can be frightening, but it is really just the study of Christ’s person and his work. So, if you can stay with me through this introduction, I believe it will be helpful for understanding the prayers of Jesus. But if you find its language a bit too technical, reading it isn’t absolutely necessary for you to enjoy (and learn from) this book.

All Christians have a Christology. But can your understanding of Christ’s person do justice to his prayer life so that his “loud cries and tears” (Heb. 5:7) to his Father, whom he revered with godly fear, were real and not somehow pretended?

Since the early church, theologians, even some of the greatest names known to us, have struggled to offer a meaningful account of the prayer life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a penetrating study on the Christology of Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius, John Anthony McGuckin suggests, “Cyril would explain Jesus’ prayer life as an economic exercise done largely for our instruction and edification.”1

Did Jesus, who is of the same essence with God, pray basically as an example for those who observed him? Or did Jesus, who is also of the same essence with man (possessing body and soul), pray because he needed to pray for his own sake as well as ours? If the latter, which I believe is the case, what does it mean for us to say he “needed” to pray? These are important questions, and they bring us to the heart of our Christology.

If Jesus did not pray out of necessity, then something has gone wrong with our understanding of who he is. A close examination of the references to Christ’s prayers, as well as the implications of his teaching ministry, reveals that his prayers were at the heart of his obedient and dependent life before the Father. In the face of temptation and trial, Jesus sought God, believing that God could and would help him in his time of need. But how can we speak of the “need” of One who is not just fully man but also God?

Interpreting Chalcedon

The Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 21) provides a valuable summary statement concerning Christ’s person: “The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ [John 14:6], who, being the eternal Son of God [Ps. 2:7], became man [Isa. 9:6], and so was, and continues to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever [Acts 1:11].”

Not only does this answer ring true; there is nothing in this statement that an orthodox Christian would deny. Yet statements concerning Christ’s person (one person, two natures), even among orthodox thinkers, were historically not quite so simple. Theological conflicts prompted the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD), which resulted in the (beautifully written) Chalcedonian Creed. Some believe that Chalcedon resolved the question about what it means to affirm an orthodox view of Christ’s person. In general, this is true. But that does not mean the story is complete or fully resolved.

Not surprisingly, the two major sides in the debate, namely, the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools, may not have been fully satisfied with the outcome of Chalcedon. Who actually “won” is still disputed. Some acknowledge that both Alexandrian and Antiochene emphases can be found in the document. The Alexandrians (i.e., “the Cyrilline party”) emphasized the unity of the person and his divinity, whereas the Antiochenes focused on the distinction between the two natures, aiming especially to offer a fully human Jesus. The danger of the Alexandrian position was that it could lean toward the heresy of Eutyches, whose view of Christ threatened the integrity of the two natures because of an undue emphasis on the divine nature at the expense of the human nature. On the other hand, the danger of the Antiochene position was to lean toward the heresy of Nestorianism, a view of Christ that threatened the unity of Christ’s person because of an undue separation of the natures.

The matter only becomes more complicated when one considers that Nestorius, for the sake of unity, was willing to affirm that Mary was, as Cyril had strenuously affirmed, theotokos (“the Mother of God”; lit. “God-bearer”), though some question his integrity in this “confession.” Additionally, it remains questionable whether his own theology threatened the union of human and divine natures in Christ. In other words, he had a heresy named after him that he likely did not espouse. Furthermore, Cyril sometimes makes statements that seem more Antiochene than Alexandrian. Whatever the case in this historical drama, the creed and later Reformed confessions and catechisms affirm that there are two natures in one person. The more pressing question focuses on how these two natures relate to each other in the one person.

Western Trajectories

Leaving aside the Christology of the Eastern church—a valuable and important study in its own right—the Western church has always made a distinction between the two otherwise inseparable natures of Christ, who is of the same substance with both humanity and God. But traditions in the Western church understood the relation of these two natures somewhat differently. For example, Roman Catholic theologians generally came to the conclusion that because of the hypostatic union, Christ possessed from birth the beatific vision of God; that is, Christ walked not by faith but by sight. His human nature received all the gifts that were ever to be given to him at the moment of his incarnation. The Lutherans went in a different, more extreme, direction. They agreed with the Roman Catholic theologians that Christ received a communication of graces all at once at the incarnation. However, they also maintained that Christ also received a communication of divine attributes to the human nature at the incarnation.

Perhaps the most sophisticated version of the Lutheran model posits that the communication of attributes is unidirectional, that is, the divine attributes are communicated to the human nature and not the other way. Even so, both Roman Catholic and Lutheran theologians elevate the human nature above the boundaries set for it in Christ’s life of humiliation. In this way, they cannot adequately account for development in Christ’s human nature. In fact, the reality of Christ’s state of humiliation comes into question: Did Christ really need to learn and be taught (Isa. 50:4)?

Moreover, one has to wonder what type of prayer life Christ had according to the Christology of those Lutherans and Roman Catholics who elevate his human nature to the degree that they do. Did Christ receive help from God in his time of need when he prayed?

Opposition to Roman Catholic and Lutheran Christology by Reformed theologians can be explained by their emphasis that “the finite is not capable of the infinite.” In response to Lutheran claims, this maxim emphasizes that the finite humanity of Christ was and (still) is not capable of receiving infinite attributes (e.g., omnipresence and omniscience). Thus, Christ’s human nature, which includes both his body and soul, experiences limitations. This remains true even though his human and divine natures are hypostatically united. Indeed, even in his state of exaltation, Christ’s glorified human nature remains distinct from his divine nature and cannot attain to or fully comprehend the divine. If it could, he would not really still be the God-man.

The relationship between the two natures in the one person is voluntary. The divine nature does not necessarily “engulf” the human nature, obliterating it to the mere appearance of flesh. All communications between the divine and human natures in Christ are voluntary, so that if he confesses a type of ignorance (see Mark 13:32) according to the limitations of his human nature, it is because we need to keep in mind that the divine nature does not necessarily reveal to his human nature all things (which is impossible). A voluntary relation between the two natures in the one person protects the integrity of Christ’s human nature so that his own prayers are really those of a man who needs to pray for the sake of his soul.

Reformed Christology

Reformed theologians insisted upon the integrity of the two natures of Christ because, as noted above, the essence of the godhead is incommunicable. So, even though Christ was a perfect man—the visible image of the invisible God—his human nature remains finite. Critics of Reformed Christology have understood this view as borderline Nestorian, and so it was vitally important for Reformed theologians to maintain that Christ’s two natures are united in a single person. Therefore, the Son of God assumed a human nature and not a human person. This anhypostatic (impersonal) assumption suggests that the human nature subsists only in the person of the Logos. Christ’s human nature is enhypostatic, that is, becomes personal (“identified”) at the moment of the incarnation when the Logos assumed a human nature. In other words, the human nature exists in and is thereby “personalized” (hypostatized) by the Logos. This is why we do not speak of natures doing things, but rather the person acting according to each nature.

The Alexandrian theologians, particularly Cyril, maintained that the identity of the person is the Logos. Thus, for Cyril, the Logos acts as the agent of all that is done in the human nature, a position that potentially raises a host of problems. The potential problem with this model has to do with how the integrity of the human nature is preserved. In other words, how can we speak of truly human experiences? Moreover, ascribing suffering to the Logos while affirming divine impassibility proves to be incoherent. Consequently, many Reformed theologians have used the idea of “person” to refer to Christ in his two natures and not the Logos simpliciter (plainly/simply). The incarnation constituted a “complex” (or, “composite”) person, which reflects the two natures of the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Following from this view of Christ’s person, many Reformed theologians have spoken of the “communication of properties,” which also includes the “communication of operations,” since the phrases taken together reflect the person doing the work. The Westminster Confession of Faith describes these concepts in the following manner: “Christ, in the work of mediation, acts according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet, by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature” (WCF, 8.7).

The “person” does not act through his human nature as his instrument; rather, the God-man acts according to both natures. This point of doctrine was actually a source of contention between the Reformed orthodox and various Roman Catholic writers who held that Christ performed his acts of mediation only as man.

Roman Catholic theologians, such as Robert Bellarmine, argued that Christ is Mediator not according to his divine nature but only in his human nature. Reformed theologians argued that if only Christ’s human nature mediated, then another human could mediate with equal efficacy before and after the incarnation. By anchoring the natures of Christ in the unity of the person, Reformed theologians refused to speak of Christ’s mediatorial work as simply the work of a human. No, Christ’s mediatorial work was the work of the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Bellarmine also reasoned that if Christ mediated according to his divine nature, then the Father and the Spirit would also be Mediators. In response, Reformed theologians argued that this type of reasoning would lead to the conclusion that since the Son was made flesh, then also the Father and the Spirit were made flesh. There is essence-appropriate language: all three persons share the same divine attributes because they are all God. But there is also persons-appropriate language: the Father is not begotten, but the Son is begotten. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, but the Father does not proceed from the Spirit, and so forth. Personal properties may differ among a shared divine essence.

Affirming that Christ mediates according to both natures as one person enables us to understand a passage such as Acts 20:28, which speaks of the church being purchased by the blood of God. Based on the communication of properties and operations, Reformed theologians had no problem saying that God died—even though it was impossible for Christ’s divine nature to suffer or die—because his work is attributed to the whole person. The whole Christ is God and man because this speaks of the person, but the whole of Christ is not God and man because a distinction between the two natures must be maintained.2So, may we sing that glorious hymn “And Can It Be?,” especially the words “how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?” Based on the doctrine of the communication of properties, the answer is yes!

The above shows that Reformed Christology had its own distinctive emphases when compared with Catholic and Lutheran accounts of the person of Christ. Most readers would find nothing too controversial in the account above. However, in the Puritan tradition, for example, one finds a somewhat unique and distinctive emphasis on the role of the Spirit in relation to the person of Christ in order to bring coherence to the relations between the two natures of Christ.

The Christological Role of the Spirit

Most Christians assume that Christ was able to perform miracles because he was God. That certainly is true. However, if we argue, for example, that Christ’s divine nature necessarily and always acts through the human nature, thus enabling him to perform miracles, a serious problem emerges concerning the plethora of texts that speak of the Holy Spirit’s role in the life of Christ. This was the problem that Cyril’s position was unable to fully overcome. By affirming that the Logos was the sole effective agent working on the human nature, Cyril’s asymmetrical relation between the two natures rendered the Holy Spirit’s work in the life of Jesus basically superfluous. Even Socinian theologians in the seventeenth century recognized this tension in classical Christology. What was the point of the Holy Spirit being given to Christ, they asked, if he is fully God?

The Christological genius of John Owen (1616–1683) becomes evident at precisely this point. Neither Roman Catholic nor Lutheran theologians can adequately account for any meaningful role of the Holy Spirit in the life of Christ. Indeed, their account of the relation between the two natures cannot sufficiently explain why Christ received the Holy Spirit without measure. Roman Catholic and Lutheran theologians generally do not know what to do with Christ’s gifts and graces (e.g., faith and hope). However, Owen, as well as others, had his own way of explaining the relation of Christ’s two natures. To my knowledge, this had not been as clearly articulated by anyone before him. One of his chief concerns was to protect the integrity of Christ’s two natures. In so doing he made a rather bold contention that the only singular immediate act of the Son of God on the human nature was taking it into subsistence with himself. Every other act upon Christ’s human nature was from the Holy Spirit. Christ performed his miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit, not immediately by his own divine power.

In other words, the divine nature acted not immediately by virtue of the hypostatic union, but mediately by means of the Holy Spirit. The conventional way of understanding Christ’s miracles has typically been to argue that Christ performs miracles by virtue of his own divine nature. But on Owen’s (and others’) model, the Holy Spirit is the immediate author of Christ’s graces. This manner of understanding the relation of the Spirit to the human nature preserves the humanness of Jesus Christ and answers a host of exegetical questions.

It seems that some Christians imagine that Christ’s divine nature takes the place of his soul. This idea, though well intended, is wrong. Christ was a perfect man with a rational soul as the immediate principle of his moral actions. In other words, Christ had a human self-consciousness. Some might say that the person of the Son is Christ’s self-consciousness, but as some Reformed theologians argued, personality is not an act but the mode or identity of a thing. Importantly, Christ’s humanity, both body and soul, does not get lost in his divinity. Because of this, Christ’s humanity needed the Holy Spirit in order to have communion with God. His prayers to God were never simply the prayers of a man, nor even the prayers of the God-man to the Father; but more specifically they were the prayers of the Son of God to the Father in the power of the Spirit. Never was a prayer uttered before God from the lips of Christ that did not have the Holy Spirit working powerfully in his human nature to enable him to speak the words the Father had given him to speak. In this way, we aim to pray as our Lord prayed: in the Spirit.

Christ’s inseparable companion during his earthly ministry as a true man was the Holy Spirit. Therefore, at all of the major events in the life of Christ, the Holy Spirit took a prominent role. The Holy Spirit was the immediate divine efficient cause of the incarnation (Matt. 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35). This was a fitting “beginning” for Christ since Isaiah spoke of the Messiah as one endowed with the Spirit (Isa. 42:1; 61:1).

The New Testament confirms Isaiah’s testimony in several places, noting, for example, that Christ received the Spirit without measure (John 3:34). At Jesus’s baptism the Spirit descended upon him (Matt. 3:16); and in Luke 4 the Spirit plays a significant role in leading Christ to and sustaining him before, during, and after his temptation (vv. 1, 14). In that same chapter Jesus reads from Isaiah 61:1–2 (“the Spirit of the Lord is upon me”) and announces that he is the fulfillment of that prophecy (Luke 4:21). Christ performed miracles in the power of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:18; Acts 10:38). Hebrews 9:14 may be taken to mean that Christ offered himself up not by his own spirit but by the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Like his death, Christ’s resurrection is attributed to the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:11), and by it he “was declared to be the Son of God . . . according to the Spirit of holiness” (Rom. 1:4; see also 1 Tim. 3:16; 1 Pet. 3:18). Because the Spirit was Christ’s inseparable companion during his earthly ministry, there is little doubt that Christ called out (i.e., prayed) to his Father by the enabling of the Spirit, which would put an implicit Christological emphasis upon Romans 8:26–27. The preponderance of references to the role of the Holy Spirit in the ministry of Christ finds its best explanation in the Reformed interpretative tradition.

Conclusion

Given the basic Christology above, Hugh Martin (1821–1885) argued that Jesus

inevitably placed himself, therefore, in a position of acknowledged weakness and infirmity—of absolute dependence on God—a dependence to be exercised and expressed in the adorations and supplications of prayer. He was made of a woman, made under the law—under the law of prayer, as of other ordinances and duties—the law by which a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven, and except the Lord be inquired of for it (Ezek. 36:37).3

Christ exercised, according to his human nature, faith, love, reverence, delight, and all the graces proper to a true human nature in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, he naturally would have desired to offer vocal requests and supplications to his Father in heaven. He would have also praised God with the knowledge he had of his Father. Additionally, he would have sought God out with a holy determination, making all other duties subservient to the duty of communion with God. In other words, true and proper humanity is realized only in communion with God.

For Christ to forsake prayer would have detracted from his true humanity. But, as we shall see, his devotion to God in prayer argues otherwise. That God truly became flesh (John 1:14) is powerfully manifested in our praying Lord.

1

Jesus Prayed from His Mother’s Breasts

Psalm 22:9–10

Yet you are he who took me from the womb;

you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.

On you was I cast from my birth,

and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

A Holy Beginning

Given what we know about Christ’s parents, particularly his mother Mary, the “favored one” (Luke 1:28), there can be little doubt that our Lord was raised in a pious, God-fearing household. All of the advantages that he needed to be a faithful Mediator were graciously bestowed upon him from his heavenly Father. Naturally, that would have included a family that raised him to know and love the Lord his God. Jesus was a faithful covenant child, a true Israelite in whom there was no deceit.

A child raised in a God-fearing household receives an inestimable blessing. True, to whom much is given much will be required (Luke 12:48). And in the case of the Lord Jesus, much was required of him, which means much was given to him. As we read in Psalm 84:11:

For the Lord God is a sun and shield;

the Lord bestows favor and honor.

No good thing does he withhold

from those who walk uprightly.

God delighted in blessing his only begotten Son from conception and will do so for all eternity.

In the first place, Jesus was a child of the covenant. He was not raised in a pagan environment, having to fend for himself in terms of his religious life.1 Rather, circumcised on the eighth day, he not only possessed the sign of the covenant—a sign of God’s covenant faithfulness to his people (Rom. 4:11)—but also received a name that was to be a badge, daily reminding him of his extraordinarily high calling as God’s Messiah (Luke 2:21). This was to affirm Christ’s solidarity with his father (Joseph) and the covenantal community of which he was a part. Not even our Lord entered the world as a neutral individual. Rather, he was in corporate solidarity with the community of faith (Gal. 3:16–29).