Hope Lutheran Church

 

Who is Jesus?

 

Jesus of Nazareth (in present-day Israel) lived on earth in the first century. He is both divine and human, the Son of God and the Son of Man, the second person of the Holy Trinity. The “Christ” is originally a title meaning “the Anointed One.” The same title coming from the Hebrew language is “Messiah”.

 

Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem. His earthly parental guardian was Joseph, a carpenter by trade. In the Holy Bible we have accounts of Jesus’ birth and early days, His visit to the temple in Jerusalem at age 12, and extensive details of His three-year public ministry from about age 30 onward.

 

Jesus’ earthly mission was to redeem the whole world from its sinfulness, to reconnect all people to God their Creator for eternity. He did this with His active obedience, never once transgressing the will and commands of His heavenly Father. He did this with His passive obedience, submitting to the indignity of death on the cross as the sacrificial substitute in payment for our sin. After suffering, dying, and being laid to rest, Jesus was resurrected and restored to human life on the third day, showing God’s power and victory over sin and death. As the Epistle to the Romans in the Bible states it, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” Through faith in Christ, trusting Him as Savior, we have peace with God now and forever.

 

Forty days after His resurrection, Jesus ascended bodily into heaven in full view of His followers. Ten days after that, on the day of Pentecost, Jesus blessed His disciples with the Holy Spirit. We continue to look for Christ’s return to earth according to His promise.

 

We invite you to start with this truth and continue learning more about Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him” (The Gospel of John, chapter 3).