The Gospel According To LukeSýnishorn

Identification of Jesus as Son of God: Luke 3:1-4:13

In this narrative, John prepared the way for God’s salvation by formally identifying Jesus as the Messiah. In his preaching ministry in the region of the Jordan River, John proclaimed the coming kingdom of God, exhorted people to repent of their sins, and baptized those who repented. But when Jesus came to him to be baptized, John identified him as the Messiah, and plainly declared that he wasn’t even worthy to untie the Messiah’s sandals. John said that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit, as prophesied in Old Testament passages like Isaiah 44:3 and Ezekiel 39:29. And this meant that the final age of history had arrived, the time when God’s salvation would be fully realized. 

Now that we’ve considered John’s identification of Jesus, let’s turn to the fourth and final section of this narrative: the confirmation of Jesus as the Son of God in Luke 3:21–4:13. Luke provided three separate confirmations of Jesus as the Son of God, beginning with a divine confirmation in Luke 3:21-22. Consider this description of Jesus’ baptism from Luke 3:22:

The Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

At Jesus’ baptism, God himself publicly confirmed that Jesus was his son through the visible appearance of the Spirit and his voice from heaven. 

Next, Luke provided a genealogical confirmation that Jesus was the Son of God in Luke 3:23-38. 

Like Matthew, Luke traced Jesus’ genealogy through the righteous line of David and Abraham. But unlike Matthew, Luke extended his record to include the righteous line of humanity all the way to Adam. To understand the significance of this genealogy, consider the way it ends in Luke 3:38:

The son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

Luke called Adam “the son of God” — the same title given to Jesus throughout these chapters. In this way, Luke pointed out something that other portions of the New Testament teach plainly. As the Son of God, Jesus was destined to fulfill the purpose of the first son of God, Adam. Or as the apostle Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 15:45, Jesus was the “last Adam.” Adam was God’s servant king on earth who was supposed to do God’s will. But he failed miserably. But Jesus is the great Son of God who succeeded where Adam had failed, thereby extending salvation to every nation on earth. 

The last confirmation of Jesus as the Son of God was a personal confirmation from Jesus himself in Luke 4:1-13. 

This is the account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. As Luke noted in Luke 4:1, the Holy Spirit filled Jesus and led him into the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan. The Devil tempted Jesus to turn stone into bread, to receive authority over the nations from the Devil, and to throw himself off the top of the temple. And the Devil began two of these temptations with the mocking words “If you are the Son of God.” In response, Jesus strongly rejected all three of Satan’s temptations, and even quoted Old Testament passages that described what a faithful son of God should do.