We do not know the exact date of Jesus’ birth, nor of His circumcision and presentation at the Temple—although they are both clearly recorded (Matthew 2:1-11; Luke 2:1-39). We do not know the date of Jesus’ death or resurrection—although there are many good calculations based on what we know of the times for the Jewish Passover (John 18:28,39; 19:31,42). Besides more than 25,000 gospel manuscripts, other first century historians record the life of Jesus (Josephus and Tacitus). Few argue today that Jesus was not a historical figure. The only date we can be historically certain of in the life of Jesus is the year of His baptism. Doctor Luke, who wanted to present a historically viable account of Jesus’ life (Luke 1:1-4), clearly records the other leading historical figures at that time (Luke 3:1-3). Why is that important?
The baptism of Jesus marks His transition from a Nazarene carpenter to a Jewish rabbi—a builder of buildings to a transformer of lives. From obscurity to anointed Messiah. It is here God revealed the full identity of His Son—truly God, empowered fully by the Spirit. What happened next was a whirlwind of ministry—teaching, healing, challenging, encouraging, exorcising (Luke 5-8).
The date for Jesus’ baptism is important because the prophet Daniel received an interpretation of his visions that gave the exact time when the Messiah, the anointed One, would come (Daniel 9:24-27). Without going into prophetic and historical detail here, the Messiah would come 483 years after the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, which Cyrus the Persian ruler issued in 457 BC. That means AD 27 is the date of Jesus’ baptism—when all the historical rulers mentioned in Luke 3:1,2 were in place. In two years, the world will celebrate 2000 years since the baptism of Jesus.
Seventh-day Adventists have clearly understood the significance of the prophecies of Daniel 7-9. Our message is to take the everlasting gospel—the good news of Jesus—to every tribe, nation, language and people (Revelation 14:6). Because of this mandate, Adventists must use every form of media they can to tell others about Jesus.
An initiative called OneVoice27 was launched at the General Conference (GC) Annual Council in October. The GC has challenged the church in September 2027 to use every medium possible to tell the world about Jesus. We could advertise in Times Square. Hope Channel will be focused on the message of Jesus reaching 1 billion people and is challenging people to hold a public proclamation of Jesus in September 2027. I can imagine Record, Signs, Faith FM all having programs, articles, podcasts, books, pamphlets telling the world about Jesus. I can imagine individual Adventists on various social media accounts posting their testimonies about Jesus and sharing information about Jesus’ life—Facebook, Instagram, TikTok . . . And to think—this is going to be true of Adventists in Bangkok, as well as Mumbai and Kingston, New York, Sao Paulo, Moscow, Birmingham, Nairobi . . . Potentially more than 24 million Adventists around the world will be turning the world’s attention to Jesus.
GC president, Pastor Erton Kohler said the everlasting gospel will go out with a loud voice—and if 24 million are speaking with one voice it will be a loud voice. I’ve never been this excited by a GC meeting as I was participating in the launch of OneVoice27. You could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in unity. There was complete solidarity from every part of the world—every division, institution and department were completely on board with the idea.
OneVoice27 is the internal rally cry to the church <onevoice27.org>. Next year the GC will launch the outward focus of the initiative that uplifts to the world Jesus as Messiah. In preparation, people are encouraged to read, listen to or watch the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and the Desire of Ages—Ellen White’s account of Jesus’ life on earth—to become more acquainted with Jesus our Messiah. We can also study Daniel, which predicted Jesus’ coming, and Revelation, which says Jesus is with His church now and coming again. You can be sure you will be hearing more about this global OneVoice27 initiative. Are you ready to be involved? Are you willing to pray for this?
