The Significance of His Name
Meditating on the name of Jesus brings blessings to each believer, while drawing forth worship from our hearts. The name “Jesus” means “Jehovah the Saviour.” God named Him, telling Mary, through the angel Gabriel, what her child was to be named. Thus His name signified that Jehovah was in the midst of His people, in the person of the Lord Jesus, God’s Son (Luke 1:31-35). Though receiving this name as Man, God, as it were, tells us, “This is Jehovah the Saviour. Don’t ever look at My Son as a mere man, for He is God manifested in the flesh.” We see this truth in Luke 5:24 (JND): “That ye may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, He said to the paralyzed man, I say to thee, Arise, and take up thy little couch and go to thine house.” We find Him there as the Jehovah “who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases” (Psa. 103:3).
Salvation Through His Name
The gospel was preached in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:12). What does it mean to preach in the name of Jesus? First, that the ones who preach are authorized to do so by the One in whose name they preach. It also shows the purpose of their preaching—to make Him, in whose name they preach, known.
To preach in the name of Jesus is not just to do something by His authority, but also to make Him known. When the Lord Jesus went to glory, after finishing the glorious work of redemption, the Spirit was sent down in the name of the Lord Jesus (John 14:26), and His purpose in coming is stated in John 16:14 (JND): “He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall announce it to you.”
While this refers to His work in connection with saints, He also works in the world (John 16:9-11). His very presence and work here on earth demonstrate to the world its sin in their unbelief and rejection of the Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit also gives them a demonstration of righteousness in the resurrection and exaltation, by God, of the One they rejected and crucified. Thus the Spirit of God brings everything into connection with the One the world knows as Jesus of Nazareth, making Him known to both saint and sinner—though not to both in the same way.
Preaching the Gospel in His Name
It is a blessed occupation to preach the gospel in the name of the Lord Jesus—to make Him known in the power of the Spirit and to seek to lead souls to accept Him as Saviour.
“Salvation is in none other, for neither is there another name under heaven which is given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12 JnD). “These [things] are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in His name” (John 20:31 JnD).
The day is coming when every knee must bow at the name of Jesus (Phil. 2:10; Rom. 14:11), but for those who have rejected Him as Saviour, that will in no way change their eternal destiny.
H. Brinkmann (from a pamphlet)