“You are… the Son of the living God.” Matthew 16:16
Do you have faith? Faith is not confidence in ourselves. Faith is not confidence in the church or in other Christians. Faith is a believing response to Jesus.
You may say, “I’ve been disappointed by Christians and hurt by the church.” The good news is that Jesus does not ask you to confess faith in other Christians or to confess faith in the church. Jesus invites you to place your faith in Him.
Faith is a believing response to Jesus in which we confess two things: 1) who He is in relation to God, and 2) who He is in relation to us. First, let’s consider who Jesus is in relation to God.
Jesus is “the Son of the Living God” (Mat. 16:16). When Jesus was baptized, God spoke in an audible voice, just as He had done when He gave the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. The Spirit of God descended on Jesus like a dove, and a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mat. 3:17).
Jesus is the Son of God. What does that mean? The fullness of God dwells in Him (Col. 2:9). The glory of God shines from Him (2 Cor. 4:6). And He is the image of God, the exact representation of His being (Col. 1:15 and Heb. 1:3).
Jesus said to Thomas, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). On another occasion, Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (10:30).
So, to honor Jesus is to honor the Father, to trust Jesus is to trust the Father, to love Jesus is to love the Father, and to worship Jesus is to worship the Father. When Christians confess that Jesus is the Son of God, they are confessing who He is in relation to the Father.
How would you have described the relationship between Jesus and God the Father before reading this? How does this clarify or add to your understanding of this relationship?
