“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” (Rev. 22:21).
I have a few thoughts before me as to the name we have just read: Lord-Jesus-Christ.
What is the value of this name? Why the three terms found in it? We do not always greet one another in such fashion. We call each other by one name. Here are three, and we are aware of the fact that frequently, in the epistles, we find these three joined together: “Lord Jesus Christ.”
I suppose the thought is common to us all that in the things of God, there is always a deeper value than at first appears on the surface. That is the character of all that is divine, isn’t it? Whatever is of God will bear close inspection, no matter how simple it may be; no matter if it is only a blade of grass. If we magnify it fifty diameters, there is a perfection and skill we do not at first find to be there. Extend the process; use a microscope with a capacity of five hundred diameters, what then? New wonders appear. This is the character of all that is divine. It is not characteristic of what is human. Most skillful things have been done by the ingenuity of men. I have read about the Lord’s prayer being inscribed upon a pin head. If that has been done, it is a marvelous thing. Take a microscope and investigate it; magnify it fifty times. “O,” you say, “that isn’t anything like I thought it was. Look here! I can see a lot of blemishes in it now!” If you extend the process five hundred diameters, you find you are looking at a thing quite crude. What man does, will not bear close investigation.
With that thought before us, I would like to inquire into these three names, beginning with the name “Jesus.”
“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins.” (Matt. 1:21).
Here is His first name—what we sometimes call His personal name. What does it mean? The context suggests its meaning: it is Saviour—but not that alone, for I believe in Greek another word could be so rendered. It is “Jehovah our Saviour.” That is, there is a breathing in this name of that which is divine. Jesus! Blessed name! Holy name!—name dear, I trust, to all our hearts here this afternoon.
Some thoughts as to this name: It is employed I believe six hundred and eighty-three times in the New Testament, and though so frequently employed, is never used with an adjective. Jesus sets before us one who is perfect; one who stands alone, and the name the Spirit of God deigns to bring before us, stands unadorned in all the matchlessness of its divine simplicity—Jesus. This is exceedingly blessed. Our hearts subscribe to it, I doubt not. There is none like Jesus. How shall we add to the beauty of that name? Such expressions as “Dear Jesus” and “Sweet Jesus” we do not care for. They do not sound seemly to the spiritual ear.
They are based upon a low conception of who that blessed one is. They are what Scripture calls “honey.” The Spirit of God presents His name in all the simplicity of our language unadorned. No adornment is needed to set forth the excellences of the person of Jesus.
What line of things does “Jesus” set before us? It is the name connected with earth; the name which sets before us the Son of God in His humiliation and rejection down here. That name sets before us the Man who trod earth’s highways and byways; the Man despised and rejected; whose path led Him but to one end—the cross. In fact, that very name was inscribed upon the cross,
“And set up over His head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS.” (Matt. 27:37).
There we have it. This gives character to the name. Jesus is the name of His lowliness, of His rejection and of His shame. When we get that word in Scripture, it is that line of things directly or indirectly, the Spirit of God would present to our hearts.
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus (not Christ) the author and finisher of faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb. 12:1, 2).
There we have that line of things before us, do we not? It is the Lord down here in a pathway of shame, lowliness and humiliation.
Some other thoughts as to this: Scripture never speaks of us as being “in Jesus.” That isn’t Scriptural. Our position is not connected with the Lord Jesus in His pathway of shame and humiliation. Our position is of another character as we may presently see. We are not declared in Scripture to be in Jesus. I know of course, there is one scripture where that expression is used in the King James’ version:
“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” (1 Thess. 4:14).
The correct rendering is, “those who have fallen asleep through Jesus” or “by means of Jesus.” It isn’t those who sleep “in Him.” “Yours in Jesus” is not Scriptural. If we say, “Yours in Christ,” that is another thing. Jesus is the name attached to a path of shame, humiliation and death, and trodden by the Lord alone. We were not associated with Him in that.
“And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore 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 earth.” (Phil. 2:8, 9, 10).
What a blessed recompense for the one who trod that lowly path. At the name expressive of that lowliness and shame, it is decreed that every knee shall bow. What infinite mercy that our knees have already bowed to it!
(To be continued)