Sermon for December 21, 2025, Fourth Sunday in Advent

Romans 1:1-7 (Fourth Sunday in Advent—Series A)

“Jesus—True God, True Man—Truly Immanuel”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

December 21, 2025

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is the Epistle Reading recorded in Romans 1:

¹Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Good News of God, ²which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures ³concerning His Son, the One who came from the seed of David according to the flesh, ⁴the One designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, our Lord, ⁵through whom we received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations in behalf of His name, ⁶among whom you, you also, are called by Jesus Christ, ⁷to all those in Rome who are loved by God, to those called saints: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

           As “Hannibal” Smith, leader of the A-Team, said in his catchphrase, “I love it when a plan comes together.” In Confirmation Class, the students are learning more about Jesus Christ as they study with me the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed. This confession of faith—I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord—has also been the theme of our Advent midweek services which we concluded last Wednesday. In today’s Epistle reading for this Fourth Sunday in Advent, St. Paul also teaches and confesses that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true Man, born of the Virgin Mary, is our Lord.

          In the greeting of Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians, he identifies himself as “a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Good News of God.” What is this Good News? It is the News that God had promised through the prophets in the Old Testament “concerning the Son of God, the One who came from the seed of David according to the flesh.” Calling Jesus, of whom Paul is an apostle, “His Son,” certainly indicates Jesus’ divine nature. He is true God, for there is only one, unique Son of God. We will hear in the Gospel for Christmas Day, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. . . . No one has ever seen God; the only God, [Jesus,] who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” And in perhaps the most well-known verse in the Bible, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. . . . Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18 ESV).         

The Son of God is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity—God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures confess that there is one true God in three distinct persons. This is the greatest mystery of the Christian faith. The blessing that God Himself gave to Aaron and the priests to speak in Numbers is distinctly Trinitarian in nature, “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Num. 6:24-26 ESV). We read Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Paul speaks a Trinitarian blessing in 2 Corinthians 13:14, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” And do not forget the cry of the seraphim in Isaiah 6, which we just looked at in our Wednesday Bible Class, praising the thrice holy God, “Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

          God the Son is true God with the Father and the Spirit. This means that the Son has no beginning and no end. He eternally receives life from the Father. John 1:1-2, “In the beginning was the Word—God the Son—and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” And it is this Son of God who does something utterly amazing. As “promised beforehand,” this only Son of God chose to become fully human in order to save His creation from sin and death! We have one such promise in the Old Testament Reading from Isaiah 7, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Is. 7:14 ESV). As St. Matthew explained to his readers in our Gospel, Immanuel means “God with Us,” Immanu—with us, el—God! In the fullness of time, God would become human flesh and blood, body and soul, and would be born of a virgin!

          It was the Son of God who took to Himself a true human body and soul in the womb of the virgin Mary, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is this divine, eternal Son of God who entered human history, born as a man, yet without sin, in fulfillment of God’s Old Testament promises (Heb 4:15). The announcement to Mary by the angel reveals His divine nature, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:31-32 ESV). Joseph is told by the angel as well, “Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:20-21 ESV).

          That’s the Good News! That’s the Gospel—Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners! (1 Tim. 1:15). Jesus, the divine Son of God, became a man to save you and me. Paul spends the first several chapters of his letter to the Romans showing us our need for Jesus and His Gospel of salvation from sin and death. Chapter 3, “For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. . . . For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:9-11, 22-23 ESV).

          Because of the sin of Adam and Eve, all humanity was corrupted by sin. Failure to truly fear, love, and trust in God became part of our condition. And the punishment of sin that God set down in Eden before the Fall is physical and eternal death. Paul writes in Romans 5, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12 ESV).

          The crown of God’s good creation sinned. People sinned. Humans sin. We are the ones who have failed to follow God’s good Law and commandments. Humanity has disobeyed the Creator and Lord. We have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. The divine Son of God had to become fully human in order to fulfill humanity’s obligation, our obligation, to keep God’s Law. Jesus, true God and true Man, is the perfect substitute for us. Romans 5:19, “For as by [Adam’s] disobedience the many were made sinners, so by [Jesus’] obedience the many will be made righteous.”

Since we, humanity, had broken God’s Law by our sin, only a human could suffer that penalty of death in humanity’s place. Hebrews 2:14, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, [Jesus] Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.” Jesus, true God and true Man, took upon Himself our sins and sinfulness as if they were His own. Jesus paid the penalty of death for us, as St. Peter has written, “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pet. 1:18-19 ESV). Having died to win our forgiveness, Jesus overcame death by His resurrection as true Man so that we, too, can be raised from death. 2 Timothy 1:10, “Christ Jesus . . . abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

Only the “Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness” could rise again from death, securing our forgiveness and victory over death and the grave. No mere human being can raise himself or herself from death, only the divine God-Man, Jesus. No  human conceived and born in sin would ever have sufficed to be our Savior. Another person would have been just like us, would have been sinful and unable to be perfect, unable to fulfill God’s demands.

Only Jesus, true God made flesh, could provide sufficient atonement for the sins of the world by His death on the cross. Perfect God and perfect Man, Jesus, the perfect substitute for you in His life and death! It is Jesus, “true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary,” who gives you His righteousness in exchange for your sins. He grants you forgiveness and eternal life because He has taken away your sins and suffered your punishment and death as His own on the cross. He died and is risen for you to give you His grace through faith in the forgiveness of sins so that you may believe.

As those loved by God, called saints, each of you believes and confesses that “Jesus Christ is MY Lord who became human, without sin, in order that He would be Lord over sin. Jesus Christ suffered, died, and was buried so that He could purchase ME with His blood. He has risen as the One who overcomes death and is Lord over death.” This is Good News for you, for all people. The Son of God has come to us as man to be our Savior. Jesus has saved us from our sins and now lives and reigns to all eternity. As you celebrate again the Son’s birth among us in flesh to be our Savior, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.