25th October 2026

Jesus’s question to the Pharisees in the header scripture seems deceptively simple, yet behind it lies the most important question we can ever face: who is Jesus? What do we believe about him? What difference does his identity make to the way we understand God, ourselves, and the world? The Pharisees knew the scriptures; they knew that the Messiah would be the ‘son of David’ (Matthew 22:42). Their answer was therefore correct as far as it went, but Jesus was inviting them to see that the Messiah was far more than a human descendant of David. The Messiah is the eternal Son who has come among us in human flesh.

For Christians, Jesus is not simply God’s representative, teacher, or messenger. Jesus is the self-revelation of God, as Paul says, ‘The Son is the image of the invisible God’ (Colossians 1:15). If we want to know what God is like, we look to Jesus – in him we see the Father’s heart towards humanity. This is at the centre of the gospel. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have eternally shared life in love, and through the incarnation the Son has taken our humanity upon himself. This means that Jesus does not merely show us the way to God: in his humanity he has brought us into fellowship with God. In him, humanity is included in the life and love of the Triune God.

This changes the way we understand salvation. We do not begin with our attempts to make ourselves acceptable to God. We begin with what God has already accomplished for us in Jesus Christ. Before we ever responded to him, Christ had embraced our humanity, died for us, rose for us and opened the way for us to share in his relationship with the Father through the Spirit. Consequently, the Christian life is not primarily about trying harder to become acceptable to God: it is about participating in the life of Christ and learning to live from the reality of who we already are in him. By the Spirit, we are drawn into Jesus’s own worship, prayer, mission and relationship with the Father.

Look again at Jesus’s question, ‘What do you think about the Messiah?’ Our answer matters because our understanding of Jesus shapes our understanding of everything else. If we see Jesus merely as a religious teacher, Christianity becomes another programme of instruction; if we see him merely as a moral example, discipleship can become human striving. But if we see Jesus as the eternal Son who has become one of us, the gospel becomes what it truly is: the good news of God’s gracious love, revealed and accomplished in Christ.

So, let’s keep our eyes on Jesus and allow who he is to shape who we are, how we see God, and how we love those around us. The Messiah is not merely the answer to a theological question: he is our life, our hope and our peace.

Local congregation:
Grace Communion West Hampstead 
Sidings Community Centre
150 Brassey Road
West Hampstead
London
NW6 2BA

Meeting time:
Sunday 12.30 pm

Local congregational contact:
Gordon Brown
gordon.brown@gracecom.church

Word of Life contact:  
wordoflife@gracecom.church