Jesus, the Faithful Son of God
NO OTHER birth in all human history has equaled in importance the birth of Jesus. He who was God’s spokesman or Logos, he who was God’s first and only direct creation, he through whom all other things were made, this one laid aside his lofty invisible existence as a spirit creature and was born of human flesh in the lowly form of a man. Little wonder that at his birth angelic creatures jubilantly sang, “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.”—John 1:1-14, ED; Rev. 3:14; Luke 2:13, 14, Dy.
And why did this “only begotten Son” of God lay aside his heavenly glory and become a man? (1 John 4:9) There are several very important reasons. Born of Mary, the daughter of Heli, Jesus became a natural descendant of King David, hence “the son of David”. His foster father, Joseph, also a natural descendant of David, was able to hand Jesus the legal right to David’s throne. (Matt. 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38) Born perfect under the law covenant, Jesus was able to fulfill that law and put it to an end. (Gal. 4:4; Matt. 5:17) Being humbled in a bondman’s form, even in the likeness of sinful man, he withstood Satan, maintained integrity, and proved qualified to be the vindicator of Jehovah God.—Phil. 2:5-8.
Furthermore, Jesus was a perfect human, no more, no less, the exact equal to the perfect man Adam. He was therefore able to lay down a perfect human life as the purchase price for all that Adam lost, namely, the right to perfect human life and to give life to posterity.—1 Cor. 15:21, 22.
It was the fall of the year 2 B.C., about October 1. The shepherds were still in the open fields watching their flocks, when an angel informed them of Jesus’ miraculous birth. (Luke 2:8-20) The birth of this promised “seed”, the one who was in due time to crush the head of the serpent, made that serpent, Satan, the Devil, exceedingly wroth. (Gen. 3:15) So the Devil tried to kill the infant Jesus. Warned by the Lord, the parents fled to Egypt. After Herod’s death they returned and settled down in Nazareth. (Matt. 2:1-23) “And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.”—Luke 2:40, RS.
At a Passover feast in Jerusalem, when but twelve years of age he amazed the learned doctors and wise men of the day by his questions and answers. When reproved by his mother for having failed to return home with them Jesus discreetly replied, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:41-49, RS) As he grew up he learned the carpenter’s trade from his foster father and “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man”.—Luke 2:52.
ENTERED PUBLIC MINISTRY AT 30
Reaching his full age of maturity according to the Jewish law, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river. People are not baptized in the Jordan in cold December. It was the fall of the year A.D. 29; proof that Jesus was not born December 25. (Luke 3:21-23) But why was the sinless Jesus baptized? Because he had made a consecration or contract to henceforth do his Father Jehovah’s will and not his own. (Ps. 40:7, 8; John 4:34) His baptism symbolized that he had made such an agreement.
Immediately after his baptism Jesus went into the wilderness and there spent 40 days preparing himself for his public ministry. At the end of that period the Devil came to him with very subtle temptations, which Jesus thwarted with the “sword of the spirit”, God’s Word. (Matt. 4:1-11) Thereafter, Jesus came in contact with some of the disciples of John, who became his companions as he traveled northward into Galilee. It was there in Cana, at the marriage feast, that Jesus performed his first miracle, turning water into wine.—John 1:29-51; 2:1-11.
Springtime, A.D. 30, with six months of gospel-preaching behind, with the whole country awakening to the Messiah’s presence, it was time for Jesus to go up to Jerusalem for the annual Passover. There he found the money-changers and those that sold oxen, sheep and pigeons right in the temple. Fired with the zeal of Jehovah, Jesus made a whip of cords and, turning over the money tables and driving out dealers, cattle and all, said: “Away with these! My Father’s house is not to be turned into a shop!”—John 2:13-17, Mo.
ALL GALILEE HEARS KINGDOM MESSAGE
Truly a man of action! Up and down the length and breadth of the land Jesus went, and on foot too, preaching and witnessing to the people: in their homes, in the market places, along the highways, in open-air gatherings on the mountainsides, anywhere and everywhere that the people would listen. Remember how he took time to talk to that Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well? (John 4:4-26) He also spent many hours on return visits, instructing the householders further in the Scriptures. And for all of this he never took up a collection.
The next two years following the Passover A.D. 30 Jesus concentrated his activity in the district of Galilee, broadcasting the thrilling message: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matt. 4:17) Indeed so, for the King himself was present. But not everyone would accept this proclaimer of glad tidings. For example, when he entered the synagogue in his own home town of Nazareth and read from the book of Isaiah, chapter 61, and applied to himself the prophecy there recorded, the people scoffed at him as only a carpenter’s son, and even tried to kill him. In striking contrast to his own townsmen were those of Capernaum, who listened attentively, “astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power.”—Luke 4:16-32.
“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.” (Matt. 4:23) This first organized tour in Galilee was interrupted by the Passover feast at Jerusalem A.D. 31. There Christ cured a cripple on the sabbath, and as a result he clashed with the tradition-keeping Pharisees who sought to kill him. Jesus, however, gave all credit to Jehovah God: “The Son can do nothing of himself.” (John 5:1-47) Back again in his Galilee territory, this plain-spoken preacher delivered that wonderful talk known as the “sermon on the mount”.—Matthew, chapters 5, 6, 7.
HASTE REQUIRED TO FINISH GREAT WORK
The last half of Jesus’ ministry was packed full of work and excitement. Not once, but three times he must go over the Galilee territory. He must bear witness to Perea, on the other side of Jordan. His fame brought great crowds to hear the important Kingdom message, yet at the same time the “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” contained in the parables were meant only for the disciples. (Matt. 13:1-53) Continually performing many miracles—healing the diseased, crippled, sick, and reviving the dead—Jesus also fed one multitude of 5,000 men and another of 4,000, “beside women and children.” (Matt. 14:13-21; 15:32-38) Along with these public demonstrations and talks he also managed to give exhortations on humility, meekness, love toward one another, forgiveness and mercy.—Matt. 18:1-35.
Passover came while Christ was on his third tour of Galilee, but this feast he did not celebrate in a public way. He was again at Jerusalem for the feast of tabernacles in the fall of the year. By then the time was running out. The harvest was great; the laborers few; scarcely six months left to finish the work. Jesus therefore sent out seventy more disciples to prepare the field for his ministry, and then speedily he swung up through Samaria, crossed the Jordan, went into Perea, crossed Jordan again in order to raise Lazarus from the dead, went back through Samaria for another visit over Perea, and then returned to Bethany only a few days before the great and final Passover.
That was a lot of traveling and preaching to pack into six months, a fitting build-up for what he would accomplish in the last six days of his sojourn here on earth. (Luke 10:1 to 11:28) But, even at that, he took time along the way to show kindness and tender compassion toward all, including little children.—Mark 10:13-16.
That final and great week, the last act, so to speak, of a stupendous drama and one which climaxed Jesus’ public ministry, was staged in and around Jerusalem. Riding into Jerusalem in triumphal procession, Christ offered himself as King amid joyful acclaim. Then he cleansed the temple the second time by driving out the religious racketeers who had made his Father’s house a den of thieves. (Matt. 21:1-16) The next day, in his parables Jesus exposed the clergy as the ones that would be guilty of rejecting and killing the Messiah, the heir of the Kingdom, and further denounced them, saying: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” And to the nation as a whole he said: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”—Matt. 21:17 to 23:39.
In an upper room in Jerusalem, Nisan 14, A.D. 33, Jesus celebrated the last Passover with his apostles, washed their feet for an example in mutual love and service, instituted the Memorial with the eleven faithful ones, and then gave them much valuable instruction. (John 13:2 to 17:26, Momentous events followed in quick succession. The agonizing scene in the garden of Gethsemane was followed by the betrayal of Jesus and his arrest and trial before the Jewish high court, the Sanhedrin. Turned over to Pilate the politician, he was sent on to Herod, who mockingly returned him to Pilate the governor, who, though he knew Jesus was innocent, delivered him over to be killed in order to satisfy the lust of the bloodthirsty clergy! (Matt. 26:36 to 27:31) Nailed to an accursed torture stake between thieves, this beloved Son of God, after suffering hours of mockery and torture, cried out, “It is finished!”
Jesus had fought a good fight, he had completed his testimony as God’s “faithful and true witness”, he had proved the Devil a liar, he had purchased the right to life lost to Adam’s offspring, he was indeed worthy to be the great vindicator of Jehovah God. For such obedience, Jehovah resurrected his faithful Son with a spiritual body and exalted him to a position in the universe far above all other creatures, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”—Phil. 2:10, 11.