Jesus was vindicated by the Holy Spirit
The Father revealed the Son by sending him to Bethlehem: “He was manifested in the flesh.” But astute readers will note that only two of the three Triune persons are covered. Not worry, because the second line of the hymn declares that in addition to the Father sending the Son, the Son was also “vindicated by the Spirit” (1 Timothy 3:16). What does it mean that the eternal Son was “vindicated” by the Spirit? There are at least three ways the Holy Spirit vindicated Jesus: the Spirit enabled Jesus’ birth, validated Jesus’ deity, and empowered Jesus’ humanity. The Spirit enabled Jesus’ birth. The hymn the Ephesian church was singing began with a declaration that Jesus was “manifested” in the flesh. Recall that the hymn is made up of six declarations, all of which are passive. In other words, the song celebrates six things that happened to Jesus rather than six things that Jesus did. This is a song about people acting on Jesus. And the first of those was that Jesus was made manifest. This