Divine Titles And Their Significance / Part Ten

Series – September 2015 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Divine Titles
AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE / Part Ten

Jesus
We come now to the only personal name of our Lord in His Manhood. Other names concern His glory, but this wonderful name is personal to Himself. It is a compound of two words, Jah, a contraction of Jehovah, “the self-existing One,” and Hoshea or Joshua, meaning “Savior.” We may well sing:

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds,
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear. (John Newton, 1725-1807)

Such was His lowly grace in taking this name, meaning “Savior-God.” We are reminded of the Scripture written over 700 years before our Lord was born at Bethlehem: “I, even I, am the LORD, and besides Me there is no Savior” (Isa. 43:11 NKJV). “There is no other God besides Me, a just God and a Savior; there is none besides Me. Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other” (Isa. 45:21-22).

We read how an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, to whom the virgin Mary was espoused, saying to him, “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins” (Mt. 1:20-21).

This name occurs as a single word over 700 times, and many more times in combination. John’s Gospel uses this name some 250 times. The disciples, as recorded in the Gospels, never once addressed our Lord as “Jesus,” but always as “Lord” or “Master.”

Savior
As a single word, Savior only occurs 25 times. Twice it is used in the sense of preserver (Eph. 5:23; 1 Tim. 4:10), which can be easily recognized by the context.

In all other instances it is used in the full sense of savior, that is, of One who offered Himself as a sacrifice for sins to God, satisfying the claims of divine holiness and enabling God to righteously offer salvation to all who believe on our Lord as Savior.

Christ
This is a title of our Lord, meaning “the Anointed.” Messiah (Hebrew) and Christ (Greek) are interchangeable. We read: “I know that Messiah is coming (who is called Christ). When He comes He will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am He’” (Jn. 4:25-26). See John 1:41, where the inspired translation is also made.

The actual word Messiah occurs only twice in the Old Testament (Dan. 9:25-26) and twice in the New Testament (Jn. 1:41, 4:25).

In the Old Testament there were three classes of persons anointed on their induction to office – priests, prophets and kings. The word “anointed,” when referring to individuals, occurs 43 times in the Old Testament. The anointing of priests, prophets and kings was typical of our Lord, who holds all three offices. He is God’s Priest, our Great High Priest (Heb. 3:1). He is God’s Prophet, for in Deuteronomy 18:18 we read that God promised that He would raise up a Prophet like Moses, and “He shall speak to them all that I command Him.” Lastly, He is God’s King, as Psalm 2:6 describes how the day will come when our Lord will sit as King on the holy hill of Zion.

We have our Lord presented prophetically as King and Priest on His throne in the following Scripture, “He shall build the temple of the LORD. He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule on His throne; so He shall be a Priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both” (Zech. 6:13).

Finally, note that while our Lord is uniquely and preeminently the anointed of God, believers today receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit of God (1 Jn. 2:20), whereby they are sealed for the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30).

By A. J. Pollack

Related thoughts shared by Walter Scott
(adapted from The Bible Handbook)Jesus
This precious name occurs upwards of 600 times in the Gospels alone. In no case has the Holy Spirit caused that sweet and precious name to be written with an adjective. “Jesus” needs no labored description, no flourish of rhetoric or tongue of man or angel to publish its glories. His dignities, His moral perfection, the varied glories of His person, ways and works proclaim who and what He is. In their expressions, Christians should carefully avoid detracting from the worth of His name – Jesus. We account for the infrequent use of this peerless name in the Epistles, only about 30 times, to the new position of Jesus as risen and exalted. In those books, “Christ,” the title of the exalted and glorified Man, is used upwards of 200 times. As the Man among men, active in goodness and love with His divine glory hid, He passed through this scene as the “Man of Sorrows” – the four Gospels recording that wondrous life. There He is called “Jesus” – His personal name as born into the world (Lk. 1:31; Mt. 1:21), telling of reproach, suffering and shame. Christ
“Christ” occurs about 50 times in the Gospels and is an official designation, usually written as “the Christ.” The Christ, or “the Messiah,” was the burden of the Old Testament Scriptures. Now, as we read in the Gospels, He came and presented Himself to be accepted by the Jews. Jesus – “the Christ” – offered Himself to Israel as the Savior from sin and Deliverer from Gentile rule (Lk. 1:67-79). But Israel did not know the day of her gracious visitation (Lk. 19:44), for He was so contrary to all Jewish expectation even though Psalms 22 and 69 and Isaiah 53 would have prepared them for the coming of a suffering and rejected Messiah before the kingdom and the glory could come. Jehovah will assuredly build up Zion; but atonement for sin on the cross must be the ground and basis of blessing and glory, whether for Jew or Gentile. Israel rejected Christ’s messianic claims; and as to the moral glory displayed in His person, works and ways, their minds and hearts were blinded. Consequent upon His full and final rejection as King of Israel, as the Christ, the Anointed of Jehovah, our place and portion is now found in Israel’s rejected One, crowned and glorified in heaven. God is not in the meantime pressing the Jewish claims of His beloved Son – He will do that soon. Then, not as before when conditional on Jewish or Gentile responsibility, our God will work in the absoluteness of His own power for the glory of His Son as the Messiah in Judea and also in the more comprehensive and broader title “Son of Man” on earth. Christ’s new place as risen from the dead and glorified on high measures our place in the glory He has entered and fixes our position before God. Hence, in the Acts and Epistles where Christ’s place and ours are fully developed, “Christ” is not often written with the article “the,” unlike in the Gospels. In the Acts, His exaltation by God is the great point, and there the name occurs about 20 times. While in the Epistles it is used upwards of 300 times, defining our position before God. As the Church, we are united to Him in life, blessedness, glory and future dominion of all things – over the works of God’s hands (Eph. 1:22-23; 1 Cor. 15). As saints, individually, we sit in heavenly places “in Him” (Eph. 1:3-5). We are not, as Christians, in position and standing before God in the first man at all; and according to practical life and ways here we should not be found in that man either. Christ risen from the dead is the head of God’s new creation, source of life and new responsibility. Life and responsibility flow from connection with Adam or Christ – the first man of the earth or the second, heavenly man. We, as believers, are “in Christ” whether alive on the earth (2 Cor. 12:2) or dead (1 Cor. 15). Thus, our position in the divine presence is not only fixed and blessed beyond all that our hearts could conceive, but it is one against which the gates of “hell [] and death” are utterly powerless, because it is founded on a life victorious over Satan and death!

Look for the continuation of this Series next month.