The Name (Ha-shem)

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name.
Philippians 2:9

The Hebrew name for God appears over 6,000 times in the Old Testament. It is four consonants without vowels (roughly equivalent to the English letters YHWH or possibly JHVH), so it is unpronounceable.

Christian Bible scholars who wish to give utterance to the name of God pronounce it Yahweh or Jehovah. Devout Jews, however, consider the tetragrammaton (those four Hebrew letters) as too holy to even say. When they come to it during the Sabbath Torah reading in the Synagogue, the word Adonai (the Lord) or Ha-shem (the Name) is substituted in its place.

This is even seen in scripture. In Leviticus twenty-four there is the story of the son of an Egyptian man who cursed the LORD. Verse eleven reads “And the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the name of the LORD and cursed; and so they brought Him to Moses….” Then in verse sixteen it goes on to say, “And whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the stranger as well as him who is born in the land. When he blasphemes the name of the LORD, He shall be put to death.”

The reason for examining these verses is to note that the phrase "of the LORD" is in italics, which means that it is not there in the original. In Hebrew, this section reads that he “blasphemed the name and cursed.” To blaspheme Ha-shem is to take the sacred name of God in vain.

To the unsaved world the name of Jesus Christ isn’t sacred, holy, or blessed. They use it as a curse. Our society doesn’t stone people for blasphemy anymore and most Christians just tune it out or accept the disrespect as normal. The problem is that when believers aren’t offended, God is. The least that a Christian could do is say to the offender, “Please don’t say that; it bothers me” or “Please stop that; you’re cursing the name I love.” The church should never forget that God has given Jesus the name that is above every name. 

Elect One

"Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.”
Isaiah 42:1

This Old Testament title is obviously a Messianic prophesy, so we’re able to examine a pre-incarnate name of Christ. The plan of redemption was already in play 700 years before the Baby Jesus was born in Bethlehem and the Servant of God was chosen for the job.

The position of Savior of the World is not something someone chooses for Himself; actually, it’s an elected office. Qualifications for the job included sinless perfection and the attributes of God. It’s safe to say that no one ran against Him in this election. Besides, who would have wanted the position anyway? The job required being mocked, jeered at, spit upon, beaten, nailed to a cross, and abandoned by one’s closest friends.

This Elect One wasn’t chosen by the people He came to save. Frankly, they (we) rejected Him. He was elected by God and the surprising thing was,  He accepted!

This brings us to why this title is so important. A willing sacrifice had to be offered as a substitute for a rebellious creation who willfully sinned. If an unwilling sacrifice was forced to suffer and die for mankind’s sin there would be neither justice nor propitiation. Only willful obedience could atone for willful disobedience.

Of the 23 times the terms elect or election are used in the New Testament, only once does it refer to Christ. "Behold, I lay in Zion A chief cornerstone, elect, precious, And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame" (1 Peter 2:6). The idea here is that believers respond in faith to the Elect One.

Most of the other verses refer to Christians who were chosen by God, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blame before Him in love (Ephesians 1:4). As God’s elect, we’re asked to be obedient to our calling and follow the example of the Elect One.

Samaritan

Then the Jews answered and said to Him, "Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?"
John 8:48

Samaritan – the word doesn’t bring up any emotional response or gut reaction in our day and age, but at the time it was given, it was a put down of the basest sort. Jewish people looked down on their neighbors to the north because they were foreign transplants to the land of promise and even after centuries of living there, were still unwelcome.

The term also had connotations of being a heretic, because although the Samaritans wanted to worship Yahweh, they did so at the wrong mountain and in the wrong manner. By equating Jesus to those undesirables, the Jewish leaders could switch from discussing issues with the Master and just dismiss any argument He could give, because He was beneath them.

The main problem of trying to insult Christ with racial slurs is that He loved everyone, including the Samaritans. He purposely traveled through Samaria to reach out to a wayward woman and then later preached to her village where later he was hailed as “the Christ, the Savior of the world” (John 4:42). In Jesus’ parable of “the Good Samaritan,” the Samaritan was portrayed as the good guy and the Jewish leaders as hypocrites. Finally, when the Lord healed ten lepers, only the Samaritan in the group came back to give thanks. Jesus commended him and told him “Your faith has made you well” (Luke 17:19).

The Lord Jesus wears all His titles well, even the derogatory ones. Bigoted men and women appear in every age and culture. They would try to ignore Christ, because they feel He is unworthy of their time and effort. He still loves them all the same and wants them to break through their hate and prejudice so they can approach Him in faith as Savior of the World.

  

Fullness of the Godhead

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. 
Colossians 2:9,10

          Not 10%, not 50%, not even 90% but the fullness of the Godhead belonged to Christ. What does that mean exactly? It means that all that is God (i.e. His power, His majesty, His holiness, His character) was bound up in the body of Jesus. Nothing was missing. He wasn’t a condensed form of deity; He was the real deal.

Having the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form took nothing away from the Father, but allowed the Creator to touch and redeem His creation in ways He couldn’t do as a distant deity. “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Colossians 1:19,20).

True faith in the Savior includes and concludes that He is God. He always was and always will be. There is only one True God and the Lord Jesus is the manifestation of that Supreme Being. The Son of God isn’t inferior to God the Father and never took away anything from the Father. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God” (Philippians 2:5,6).

The realization that Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead should shake people up. It certainly did in the first century. Many of those who shouted “Crucify Him!” or jeered at Him or spit on His face later fell down on their knees with fear and repentance when they realized they allowed the Prince of Life to be put to death.

Today, most people just don’t get it. They either don’t know that Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead or they really don’t understand what that means. To form an opinion about Christ that views Him as less than God is demeaning and rejects his sovereignty and control over their lives.

Christ knows all, sees all, and has existed for all eternity. When He lived and walked on earth, in His body was the Fullness of the Godhead. 

Most High God

This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, "These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation."
Acts 16:17

The Apostle Paul and his evangelistic team were led by the Holy Spirit to take their message to Europe and they began preaching in Philippi, one of the chief cities in Greece. This was a whole new territory and the satanic opposition was evident. Almost from the very beginning of their time there, a girl who was possessed by a demon followed them and became very distracting. In her spirit affected voice, she announced the missionaries to be “Servants of the Most High God.” Paul cast the demon out and the opposition just intensified.

It is a very curious thing to note that this title of Christ actually came through demonic channeling. Demons are nothing more than the fallen angels who were cast out of heaven by the Lord of Glory, so they know who He is. When Jesus approached the demoniac in the county of the Gadarenes, the man fell down before the Lord and the voices inside him also recognized Christ as “Jesus, Son of the Most High God” (Luke 8:28). This was no profession of faith on the part of the evil spirits but an acknowledgement that He was their God and one day He would condemn them to go into the abyss.

The Apostle James makes this point when he wrote: “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe --- and tremble!” (James 2:19). Actually, the dark host has a better response to the Savior than the stiff-necked human race does. Demons acknowledge Christ’s deity, bow down before Him, and believe that their punishment is sure. They, however, rebelled willfully against their creator, so the grace of God was never extended to them and their doom is a sure thing.

People on the other hand, were deceived into sinning, so God provided a way to escape through the blood of the Crucified One. Salvation is extended to those who approach Christ in faith, confessing their sin, and acknowledging Him as the Most High God. 

Yeshua

She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Yeshua, [which means ‘Adonai saves,’] because he will save his people from their sins.”
Matthew 1:21 CJB

Although I have no clear memory of it, shortly after I was born, my legal name became Richard Khol.  I know that because my birth certificate says so, although through the years I’ve been given other names.  As a kid, everyone called me Rickey and my baby brother called me “Racoo”. When I got to High School, I chose to call myself “Rick” and that’s who I consider I am.

My name in South America was “don Ricardo”.  That’s not who I was, but it worked for Spanish speakers and I was alright with it. While there, I became close with an Ecuadorian pastor who expressed his friendship by always addressing me as “Rrrreek”. He didn’t pronounce it right, but at least he tried and I appreciated it.

When Christ was born in Bethlehem His legal name was probably "Yehoshua", which we pronounce today as “Joshua”.  In Hebrew it means “God-saves” and was a common name in the first century. This four syllable word was shortened to three in the name “Yeshua” which translates "Salvation".

English speakers are usually clueless to both the meaning and pronunciation of the Lord’s name. When the New Testament was written in Greek, the Savior’s name, Yeshua, was transliterated to "ee-ay-soos", since there weren’t equivalent letters in both languages. Then, in the 5^th century the New Testament was translated into Latin and for a thousand years His personal name was “IESVS”.  

The Tyndale, Geneva, and early King James versions all used the Latin spelling of the name. It wasn’t until 1630 that the “J” was added and pronounced "Yeh". Later, the “Yeh” sound was finally dropped and the "Jeh" sound substituted.

“Jesus”, then, is a transliteration of the Latin, which is a transliteration of the Greek, which is a transliteration of the Hebrew.

O Lord Yeshua, please have patience with us!  We’ll get your name right in heaven!

Power of God

But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
1 Corinthians 1:24

Many of the classic paintings of Christ from the Middle Ages and Renaissance show an emaciated man with a pale face, scrawny arms, and ribs showing through His skin. The idea was to show the horrors of the crucifixion, but the Lord looks pathetic. It would make one think, “How could this skinny guy be ‘Savior of the World’ much less the ‘Power of God?’”

Certainly “the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25), but people tend to miss the strength of God even when it’s obvious. Jesus was no weakling. He walked through the middle of an angry mob that was wanting to kill Him in His home town of Nazareth and then the crowd just melted away at His boldness (Luke 4:28-30). He called the Jewish religious leaders hypocrites to their faces (Matthew 23:13-15) and threw the buyers and sellers out of the temple – twice! (John 2:14-15; Matthew 21:12-13). He stood up to Judas and his army of thugs and impressed Pontius Pilate with His self-control at His trial. If He wanted or felt He needed them, He could have summoned twelve legions of angels at any time, but this powerful man had everything under control. He was the Power of God on earth.

As Creator, He made both visible and invisible worlds by the power of His Word and is, in fact, the force that holds the universe together (Colossians 1:16-17). He is the commander-in-chief of all the good angels and has disarmed all the principalities and powers of Satan and his demoniac host (Colossians 2:15).

Immanuel is God with us, man’s very present connection to the Almighty. Christ Jesus is the source of all energy, the force behind the universe, the Power of God.