In Old Testament times the Deliverer foretold as the object of faith and
hope and love under the Gospel Dispensation was announced by a
declaration of His name. "His name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of
Peace."[034] Immediately before He appeared a messenger was sent from
heaven with the Divine command, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he
shall save his people from their sins."[035] The name is thus not the
ascription to Him of qualities evolved from our own conception of what
He is, or of what God is in Him, but God's disclosure of His infinite
love and of His purposes for man's salvation. In His Divine power and by
His efficacious sacrifice He is Jesus, the Saviour. He does not save, as
some who profess to be Christians hold, by the influence of His own
example and teaching only, just as one man may be said to save another
whom he persuades to abandon evil habits and form good ones. He is our
Saviour because He died as a sacrifice for our sins. Had He not expiated
our guilt by dying for us, His example, teaching, and sympathy would
never have brought us salvation.
The name "Jesus" is a human name. In its Hebrew form Joshua, Jehoshua,
Hosea it had been borne by others. We read of one Jesus in the New
Testament[036] and of many in the pages of Josephus. In this respect, as
in other particulars, Jesus was "made like unto his brethren" and bore a
human distinctive name. "Jesus" was accordingly the name given to Him at
His circumcision, by which He was to be known in His family and among
the people of Nazareth. During His ministry He was described as "Jesus,
the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee";[037] and the title affixed to His
cross by Pilate was "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." Yet, as
if to make emphatic the truth that His humanity did not derogate from
His Divine power and Godhead, the first Evangelist, who describes the
angel's visit, quotes in immediate connection Isaiah's prophetic
announcement, "They shall call his name Emmanuel, which being
interpreted is, GOD with us."[038] In the name Jesus thus bestowed we
have the announcement of Himself as a personal Saviour from sin, in its
power and consequences. Of those who had borne it before Him some were
raised up to deliver the people of their nation from suffering in time,
but He came to be man's everlasting Saviour. "Neither is there salvation
in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men,
whereby we must be saved."[039] It is important therefore to bear in
mind that Jesus is a name not only given to Him by God, but a name
itself Divine; not only the name by which, as that of a Mediator, we
worship God, but the name under which, as that of God Himself, we
worship Him. "God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name
which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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