Summary
His Christology
On the road to Emmaus, two disciples walk with the risen Jesus and fail to recognize him Luke 24:13-27. They knew Jesus—or thought they did—but their account of him betrays a faulty Christology. They had reduced the Messiah to a political hope, and when that hope was crucified, they were left with despair. Jesus calls them "foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared," not as cruelty but as a reproof of weak faith. A wrong understanding of Christ collapses into hopelessness, and church history bears this out: heresy after heresy has arisen from a deficient grasp of who Jesus is.
Philip Melanchthon, co-author of the Augsburg Confession, framed the matter with a battle cry: "To know Christ is to know his benefits." Knowing Christ, we turn to Scripture and find his gifts marked there. Yet the order can also be reversed—to know his benefits is to know Christ. The two are inseparable. We come to recognize who he is precisely as we receive what he has done for us: incarnation, sinless life, atoning death, victorious resurrection, baptism, absolution, the Supper. The benefits are the person; the person is given in the benefits. This is the heart of His Christology.
Jesus then asks, "Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" The word necessary carries a double weight. The Messiah's suffering was both required and inevitable—established before time by the counsel and decree of God himself. It was required because the law demands atonement: "the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls" Leviticus 17:11. It was inevitable because no creature could pay the debt; "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" Hebrews 10:4. God himself had to enter humanity and offer the one pure sacrifice, "once for all" Hebrews 10:10.
"Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." Christ is the promised offspring of the woman who crushes the serpent's head Genesis 3:15; the seed of Abraham in whom all nations are blessed Genesis 22:18; the Passover lamb of Exodus and the scapegoat of Leviticus who bears all the iniquities of the people Leviticus 16:21-22; Immanuel, the virgin's Son Isaiah 7:14; and the suffering servant who was "wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities" Isaiah 53:5. The thread of grace runs through every part of Scripture—Law, Prophets, Psalms, and writings—and it is one thread, woven on one Person.
The Church confesses this true Christology every Lord's Day. In Luther's explanation of the Second Article, we believe "that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death." This Christ, made sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God 2 Corinthians 5:21, is true God and true man, our Mediator and Redeemer.
In him, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting our trespasses against us. The chains of sin, death, and the devil are cut. And in that freedom we are sent—witnesses and missionaries proclaiming his benefits to friends, family, and neighbors, that they too may come to know Christ as he truly is. This is most certainly true.
Video citations
- "His Christology" 4-30-23 — If you would please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, the 24th chapter. If you're using a Pue edition of the Bible, that is on page 78 of the New Testament. We are continuing our walk on the…