The God Who Saves // The Amazing Names of God, Part 10

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Jesus Christ. For a long time I thought that Jesus was His first name and Christ was His last name. Truly. I was so embarrassed when I discovered that I was wrong. So – what do those two names mean together – Jesus Christ – and what if anything does that have to do with my life and yours, here and now?

Can you believe it's Friday again? Friday again, unbelievable. Here we are at the end of another week and at the end of our two weeks looking at the different names for God used in the Bible. There are over twenty of them. And we've just had a chance over the last 9 days to check out 9 so far. And the one we're going to look at today that will make it 10.

10 different names telling us about 10 different aspects of who God is. And that's the point, this isn't some kind of intellectual exercise, it's about knowing God better in our lives today. In the midst of the things that we go through day by day.

I don't know about you but if God is God, if He's loving and powerful and if He indeed wants to have a powerful impact in my life for the better. If, as Jesus said, He came so that we can have a life in all its abundance, then you know something, I want to know who this God is. Not about Him as nice as that might be, I want to know Him first hand.

And He reveals Himself to us in all sorts of different ways, He does. By showing up, by comforting us, by helping us, by opening doors that should have been closed and He reveals Himself to us through His word, the Bible. Now not some dry theological text but real stories about a real God in the lives of real people.

And when those two come together, what we discover about God in His word and what we experience of Him in our lives, that's how we get to know Him deeper and deeper. And today, today we're going to explore the finest name, the most wonderful name used of God in His word. It's the name that we just can't skip over and that name is Jesus Christ.

Now to tell you the truth there was a time when I thought, well Jesus must be His first name and Christ must be His surname or His last name. Truly, I mean you might laugh at me but hey, that's what I thought. And it wasn't until I was in Bible College studying for my Bachelor of Ministry degree that I discovered, somewhat to my embarrassment, that that just wasn't true.

So let's have a look at the two parts of that name and what we're going to discover, as we do that over the next few minutes, is how wonderful God is, how utterly wonderful He is. First Jesus, you know, when Jesus was a boy growing up, working in His dads carpenter shop out the back in Nazareth in Galilee, His mother Mary didn't call out to Him, "Jesus, Jesus, come inside for lunch."

Because Jesus is the English translation of His original Hebrew name which was Joshua or as we'd say Joshua. That was His name, Joshua. And that name literally means "God saves" or "Gods salvation". Now, as it turned out in the 1st century Israel that was really quite a common name. There was nothing unique about it. Most of us in our cultures don't know anyone else called Jesus although I do believe it's still quite common today in some Hispanic cultures.

So, back then He was just another Jesus and the reason that the name was so common is that it belonged to another man who had lived many centuries before, a man called Joshua who started out as Moses assistant. But when Moses died, rather inconveniently for Israel, just as they were about to step across the Jordan into the Promised Land after 40 years in the wilderness.

Joshua was appointed by God to take over from Moses and lead God’s people into the Promised Land. Remember Abraham was the first man in this Israel nation that God spoke to, although the nation didn't exist then, he had a son called Isaac who had a son called Jacob who had 12 sons, one of whom was Joseph the Prime Minister of Egypt.

These 12 sons became the father's of the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel and Israel grew up in slavery in Egypt and then God sent Moses to go tell Pharaoh, "let my people go" and God sent 10 plagues on Egypt. Finally Israel passed through the Red Sea, they spent 40 years in the wilderness on the exodus with Moses in charge. And then finally they came to the threshold of the Promised Land. That land we know today as Israel.

Moses sinned and died and it was Joshua who led Gods people over into the Promised Land and took the land from the people who were already there, the Canaanites and others, battle by battle. So it was really Joshua who led God’s people into the Promised Land, hence the name "God’s salvation".

That’s where Jesus gets His name. He is "God’s salvation". Because, as we saw yesterday on the program, He saves us from our sins and leads us into the Promised Land of an eternal relationship with God. God sends His Son to become a man and to save us, to save us from an eternity without God. What a fantastic name for the Son of God. Jesus, the Son of God who saves us from eternal punishment and brings us from darkness into light.

That's exactly what the angel said to Joseph, Mary's husband, when to his horror he found that his fiancé was pregnant. Matthew chapter 1, verse 21:

She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.

And what about the "Christ" bit? Well ... Christ is the English word for the Greek word Christos. And the Greek word Christos is the translation of the original Hebrew word that we would pronounce Messiah. It literally means "God's anointed one", anointed, appointed by God.

See, in 1st century Israel the nation was again under severe oppression through foreign occupation. This time it was the Romans. And through what the prophets had said and written in the Hebrew Bible, the thing that we Christians now call the Old Testament, Israel was believing God for a new king. The kings of Israel were known as 'Messiahs' because they were Gods anointed kings.

Many were waiting on a warrior king like David to come and to rise up and pull up an army and wop the Romans and drive them out of the land. But that wasn't what God had in mind. What He had in mind was to send a king not to establish a worldly kingdom, as people understood a kingdom to be, God sent His Son to establish the kingdom of God here on this earth. And so when the wise men from the east came for this child they said, Matthew chapter 2, verse 2:

Where is the child who has been born the King of the Jews? For we observed His star at it's rising and have come to pay homage to Him.

And when He was on trial by Pontius Pilate He was asked, "Are you the King of the Jews?" And they mocked Him. "If you're the King of the Jews then save yourself." They never got it. Jesus wasn't an anointed earthly king, Jesus was the Christ. Jesus the Christ was and is Gods anointed saviour. That's what those two words together mean. Jesus Christ, God’s anointed saviour, comes to save you and me from our sins.

Now, I don't know where you are in your life but you know something, that's so much better than earthly king. My sins, my failures, my weaknesses, my rebellion against God have caused me so much grief in my life. They've caused so many other people so much grief.

I needed saving and not just to live a much better and more fulfilling and more joyful and more peaceful life here on this earth. But so that I can be forgiven by God through the price that Jesus the Christ, God’s anointed saviour, paid for me on that cross.

That's what this name means. Jesus the Christ, God’s anointed saviour who came for you and for me to die for our sins, to rise again to give us eternal life. No wonder, no wonder that it is the name that is above every other name. That is good news, isn't it?