The use of a name, whether for a person or a thing, is to indicate and identify them. Thus the name, whether in itself expressive and significant, or merely artificial and meaningless, comes inevitably to signify that in which the person or thing named is unique, and by which he or it is to be distinguished from all others. But names in Scripture often go further than this, and are expressly selected because they themselves express certain qualities which will be found adhering to the persons upon whom they are bestowed.
God indeed attaches great importance to names, and much emphasis is laid upon them in Scripture. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that when His Holy Son was to enter this earthly sphere and bear a Name, the selection of it was not left to the caprice of men. It was chosen beforehand and revealed by God Himself. Nor was it possible to express the glories of the Son in His person and offices by any single name ever uttered by human lips.
Accordingly there are in Scripture seven God-selected names, bestowed upon His Son prior to His birth in Bethlehem — names indicating to those who looked for Him seven great outstanding characteristics of the promised Messiah, in which He was and is forever unique and without a peer. A thousand other precious qualities exist in Him and combine to produce that moral perfection that dazzles the wondering gaze of men and declares Him to be Divine, but which language is utterly inadequate to express.
Join all the glorious names
Of wisdom, love, and pow’r,
Which mortals ever knew,
Which angels ever bore:
All are too mean to speak His worth,
Too mean to set the Saviour forth.
Yet while this is true, the names which God before chose and bestowed upon His Christ were so chosen because they bring to the attention of men the seven all-important qualities of the Son of God in His relation to the men He came to redeem. Consider then these marvelous names.
1 . IMMANUEL
The first is revealed in Isaiah 7:14. “A virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” What a name for a human babe! — “God with us.” Truly a mystery name attached to a mystery birth! “A virgin shall conceive.” A babe born as none other ever was born — to bear a Name none other ever bore. An immaculate birth of an immaculate Babe.
The first God-given name thus focuses the attention on the first great fact of Christ — that He was God manifest in the flesh. Not a godly man, but God-man. A great mystery but a great glory. The holy God condescending to human form. “The Word was made flesh and tabernacled with us, and we beheld His glory,” just as God tabernacled with Israel and they saw the Shekinah Glory. He “came into the world,” an expression that could be used of no other born of woman. “I came forth from the Father” (John 16:28), said He, and men marveled as they heard. “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him” (John 1:10), and so His Name was called Immanuel and nothing less.
Then in Isaiah 9:6-7, we read five other names revealed to faith whereby the Child-to-be-born and the Son-to-be-given seven centuries later should be known.
2. WONDERFUL
“His name shall be called Wonderful.” Could any name be more appropriate for One about whom everything was wonderful (that is, caused men to be full of wonder)? His birth, His life, His words, His works, His death, His resurrection, His ascension — all wonderful!
He was a daily wonder to all. Every one “marveled” at Him. The shepherds marveled, Mary marveled, the doctors in the temple marveled at Him. The people did the same, and when at last He stood bound and beaten, a sorry spectacle before His judge, we read, “Pilate marveled” (Mark 15:5). Even the disciples who knew Him best shared the same wonder and marveled most of all. For Jesus our Lord was wonderful and remains wonderful today.
There is no explaining Him from any rationalistic viewpoint; men can but marvel. He is past belief to all but those to whom He is revealed as Lord, and to them He remains for ever wonderful, as they worship and adore His worthy Name.
3. COUNSELOR
“His name shall be called . . . Counselor.” And rightly so, for the wisdom of God was upon Him. He taught with authority and not as the scribes. He drew nothing from the wisdom of men who had preceded Him. He “never learned.” His words were not logical conclusions but assertions as by one who knew. “I say unto you” was the astonishing confidence with which He addressed His generation, and the generations that have followed have never proved one word He spoke other than the perfection of truth
His name truly was “Counselor,” for He answered hard questions. He solved the riddle of life and revealed the secret of all human bliss. He is the standard of wisdom for all time, and is man’s supreme Counselor in every age. He gives wisdom liberally so that the wayfaring man though a fool does not err in his way. His people need no other Counselor but find all things necessary for life and godliness in the knowledge of Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4. THE MIGHTY GOD
It will be at once conceded that neither Isaiah nor any other Hebrew prophet would of his own volition have applied such a name to one who was to be born of human flesh. Such a statement is in itself evidence of inspiration both in its inception by the prophet and its reception (and rejection) by the people; for it was solely because Jesus applied this name to Himself that the Jews went about to slay Him, not for any mighty works, but because “He being a man made Himself God” (John 10:33). Yet this was the name and nothing less by which the Messiah was to be known. God! THE MIGHTY GOD! Was He not worthy to bear it? Did He not claim and exhibit all the attributes of Deity? He had the Omnipotence of God: “All power” (Matt. 28:18). He showed the Omniscience of God: “Knowing all things” (John 18:4). He claimed the Omnipresence of God: “There am I in the midst” (Matt. 18:20). He asserted His eternity as God: “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). He assumed identity with God: “I and My Father are One [lit., one thing]” (John 10:30). He proclaimed Himself as the Universal Judge of Men, and, most significant of all, He accepted the worship of men, which is the sole prerogative of God.
To us today He is not only our Redeemer and Lord, but “Our Great God and Saviour,” Christ the Wisdom of God and the Power of God. Well is He named “the Mighty God.”
5. THE EVERLASTING FATHER
“The Father of Eternity” (R.V.) is Jesus our Saviour. All creation springs from Him, and “by Him all things consist.” Yet the Name is His in a closer and more evangelical sense, for by virtue of His Saviourhood, He has a wondrous seed. He will bring many sons to glory, and will present them faultless before the presence of His Glory with exceeding joy, saying, Here am I and the children Thou gavest Me (Heb. 2:13). “He shall see His seed,” said Isaiah, and that seed will be His constant satisfaction. Like as a father pitieth His children, so the Lord (Jehovah Jesus) pities them that fear Him. Yes, Christ has a father’s heart, a father’s care, a father’s concern, a father’s thought, a father’s regard for His children, and to those who, like Philip, say, “Show us the Father,” He replies gently, “Hast thou not known Me? . . . he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9), and so He is rightly called “the Everlasting Father.”
6. THE PRINCE OF PEACE
“His name shall be called the “Prince of Peace.” For this is the central fact concerning Him in His relation to men as it is the central theme of the “Gospel according to Isaiah.”
Those wonderful Gospel chapters of Isaiah (40 to 66), so distinct from all that preceded them as to tempt the critics to challenge their authorship, have for their theme the peace He was to procure “for them that are afar off and them that are nigh.” In Him and in Him alone could righteousness and peace meet together, and so completely did He abolish in His flesh the enmity, that He was able to proclaim peace to Gentile sinners who were “afar off,” and Jewish rebels who “were nigh.”
The princes of this world gain their glory by wars. He alone is the Prince of Peace.
7. JESUS
But the last of the names He bore before His birth is the most renowned of all. It was twice bestowed: first on the eve of His lowly birth, and again on the occasion of His glorious session at the right hand of God (see Phil. 2:9-10). It is the name of “Jesus.” “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).
JESUS! JEHOVAH SAVIOUR! In this wondrous name is comprehended all the other names He bore. It is the one word (and the only word) common to mankind. Millions in every age have tasted its sweetness, have lived in the joy of all it predicates and have whispered it with their dying breath. Children have lisped it at their mothers’ knees, strong men have named it in their hour of trial, poets have woven it in their hymns, and above all, the pages of the New Testament are studded with it as with a precious gem upon an average of four times to every page. It is a Name supreme of all the names that are named for the One who for all time and eternity will bear it alone.