Baptism of Our Lord

All people are descendants of the first man, Adam. After the worldwide flood of God’s judgment of sin, Noah and his sons became the progenitors of all mankind. It was of the lineage of Shem (Genesis 11) that the man Abram was born. The descendants of Abram/Abraham were named Hebrews or Jews, after Judah, one of Jacob’s sons; this naming pertained to all of Israel after the Babylonian exile. To this day, they are referred to as God’s “chosen people” after the words of Moses: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6). They were chosen to be the lineage of the Messiah, the deliverer, the Christ. Faithful to His promise, God took on flesh “of the house and lineage of David” (Luke 2:4) as the incarnate Son of God and Son of Mary of Nazareth.