Names in the Scriptures form an interesting study. For instance, the various names that God uses to describe Himself: Elohim, Jehovah, The Lord God, Almighty God, The Most High God, Father–all convey different truths about the same Person. And so it is with those in connection with the Saviour. Sometimes we read of Him as Jesus, Christ, Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, The Lord Jesus Christ–all telling us how words fail to describe the unique Person who is everlasting. But I wish to call attention to titles in the following portions: Mark 6:3; Matthew 1:18, 21; Matthew 1:1; and John 1:48-51.
The Son of Mary
“Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). In one breath He is called “the Son of the Highest” and the Son of Mary (Lk. 1:30-32). This corresponds with the Old Testament, where we arc told in Micah 5:2 of His birth in Bethlehem; and also that “His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” Yet He became flesh and dwelt among us. What a Son Mary possessed! Never mother before or since had such a Son.
In Luke, after narrating the scene in the temple, the passage finishes by telling us that “He went down and was subject to them” (Lk. 2:51). He who was the Creator of all things and by whom all things consist, yet He was subject to them.
The first requisite for anyone who would serve God in public is to “show piety at home” (1 Tim. 5:4); and surely there will be no service rendered which is pleasing to God if this is neglected.
As to the intervening years, the Word of God is silent, and speculation is worse than useless; but as we emerge from these hidden years we hear Mary saying, “Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it” (Jn. 2:5). She evidently knew enough to be able to rest in what He did and said, and instructed others to do the same. To the very last He fulfilled the Son’s part perfectly, and even when He came to die on the cross, He was still thinking of His mother, and considered her future welfare in this vale of tears (Jn. 19:26-27). Indeed, no woman was so honored as this woman, and generations arise and call her blessed, we among the rest.
The Son of David
The Lord Jesus came of the royal line, and the question was asked at His birth: “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” (Mt. 2:2). He had a proven pedigree, and manifested by His works and ways that the scepter would be safe in His hand, and His Kingship would result in glory to God and blessing to man.
The nation of Israel would not have Him, and instead of acclaiming Him as their Messiah, they cried, “Let Him be crucified.” Thus He was rejected by that generation. But that by no means frustrated the purposes of God; they were only postponed, and the day hastens when He whom the heavens have received will be revealed once again.
Then Israel, who has suffered so terribly for their rejection of Him, will be gathered again into their own land, and God will “give unto Him the throne of His father David,” and Jerusalem will become the City of the Great King. Israel will then be reunited and blessed indeed in their own land under the benevolent reign of great David’s greater Son.
The Son of Abraham
God called Abram out of a land of idolatry, from Ur of the Chaldees, saying, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee…and I will bless thee and thou shalt be a blessing” (Gen. 12:1-2).
We know from the life of Abram that all the promises made to him were unfulfilled through the weakness of the flesh, but they are all going to be fulfilled in Abram’s seed, which is Christ (Gal. 3:16).
When the Lord Jesus comes back and establishes His kingdom, not only will Israel be blessed, but all the nations are to share in that blessing, and to earth’s remotest bounds His sway and rule shall be acknowledged, and in that millennial reign the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth “as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9).
The Son of Man
When we consider Christ in this character we think of the blessing that this groaning creation will yet have. Man, when he fell did not only ruin himself, but dragged his inheritance down with him and ruined it. As well, creation has suffered terribly through the sin of man. However, it is God’s purpose that dominion over the work of His hands should be entrusted to man (Ps. 8), and that will be definitely fulfilled in the Lord Jesus who will lift creation out of its groaning condition and bondage “into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Heb. 2:8; Rom. 8:21). Then “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain” (Isa. 11:9), and “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb” (Isa 11:6). Then “the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isa. 35:1) under the care of the One who turned this moral desert of a world back into a garden.
The Son of God
What shall we say of Him under this aspect? The Church is associated with Him in this character. It was immediately on confession of Him as “Son of the living God” that the Lord Jesus spoke of His Church (Mt. 16:18). Far, far above this earthly scene, ruled by sun and moon and stars, this heavenly, this unique community, is identified with Him, and that to all eternity.
In the Epistle to the Colossians we read that the Saviour “made peace through the blood of His cross,” and that God “reconciled all things unto Himself by Christ, whether they be things on earth or things in heaven” (Col. 1:20). There are a great number of events that God has not fully revealed. We read that He charges His angels with folly (Job 4:18); and the heavens are not clean in His sight (Job 15:15). The Lord Jesus died to bring everything in heaven and on earth into harmony, and that will be fully accomplished by Him as the Son of God.