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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Who
Is The Lord Jesus Christ We can learn a lot about
Jesus by simply studying His name and titles.
Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she’d miraculously
give birth to a son who she would name “Jesus”.
(Luke 1:31-32) In the
English New Testament the name “Jesus” is translated from the Greek
word “Jeezuhs”. “Jeezuhs”
is the Greek equivalent of
the Hebrew word “Jahshewuh” where we derive our English word
“Joshua” that is found in the Old Testament.
Simply put, “Jesus” is English, “Jeeszuhs” is Greek and
“Jahshewuh” is Hebrew, all of which
mean, “Yahweh is salvation”.
“Yahweh” is the proper Hebrew name for God.
So there’s your short language lesson for the day.
When Gabriel tells Mary
to call her new born son “Jesus”, or “Yahweh is salvation”, what
he is in fact saying to her is that the boy she will give birth
to will be Yahweh, or God Himself who will rescue mankind. No
wonder she was shocked, confused and dumfounded. She
was giving birth to God. How could that be? Of
course God already existed. She
was really giving birth to God in a human body, which is our fundamental
understanding of who Jesus is. We
call this the Deity of Christ. This is also why Jesus is called the Son
of God, because God was His biological Father. It’s not that Jesus
never existed before He was born in the stable. He did exist as the
Eternal Word of God, as John says in John 1:1-9. He
simply took on a new form, and in my thinking will never return to His
original form as the Eternal Word. So the name Jesus tells
us who Jesus is. He is God
in human flesh. This is the
cornerstone to what we believe as Christians.
Beyond this truth Jesus
has two main titles. They
are “Lord” and “Christ”. This
is why we call Jesus, ”our Lord Jesus Christ.
We can learn lots about Jesus’ roll in the Godhead by
understanding what Lord and Christ mean?
“Kurios” is Greek,
“Adonia” is Hebrew, and “Lord” is English.
When applied to Jesus these words mean that He is the Supreme
Authority over all there is, both in the spiritual world and the
material world, and any other type of world that may exist. There’s no
one else in human history like Jesus. He
is one of a kind. He has final authority in all things.
He has no real rivals even though satan may claim to be one.
As Lord He is in control of all things, sustains all things, and
does what He wants with all things. An interesting point to
note is that some scholars say that first century Christians never used
the word Lord (kurios) in
respect to any human authority, because they believed so
strongly that there was only one real Lord, and that is Jesus. Jesus’ second title is
Christ. Christ is not
Jesus’ last name as evangelicals tend to use it.
We might say, “Christ will return”.
To be specific, we should say “our, or the
Christ will return”. We
say “the President will return”. We
don’t say, “President will return”, because “president is a
title and not a name”. The
same is true when using Jesus’ title of Christ. “Christos” is Greek.
“Mashiach” is Hebrew. “Christ
is English. All these
words in their simplest form mean “anointed one”.
In connection with Jesus, He is the Anointed One, chosen by God
to provide salvation to the world, and when I use the word world I mean
all of creation, because when the believer experiences final
restoration, the rest of creation will experience restoration as well.
So just by understanding
Jesus’ name and His two titles we learn a lot about who Jesus is and
what He does. His name tells
us that He is God in human flesh, meaning He and God are one yet with an
obvious distinction in
personhood. As Heb. 1:3
says, “He (Jesus) is the exact representation of God’s being”.
As Lord, Jesus is the Supreme Authority over all there is. He has
the last word in all things. He
has no rivals and no competition. And
as Christ, He’s been chosen by God to bring God’s salvation to the
world. Once
understanding this, no wonder we should speak of our Lord Jesus Christ
as often as we can.
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