The Names of Our Saviour
The names of Jesus are so important that they are usually treated separately in any good book of theology. The Bible attaches the same importance to these names.
The name Jesus, for example, is so important that it was given to Joseph by God’s own messenger before the birth of Christ. The meaning of that name, as revealed by the angel, is a kind of gospel in miniature, in which every word is a sermon: “and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). It is by that name alone, therefore, that men are saved (Acts 4:12).
The name Christ is also full of significance. Jesus pronounces Peter blessed for confessing it, telling him that the only way he could know that name was by gift from God (Matt. 16:17). That name confessed is the immovable foundation of the church (Matt. 16:18) and the proof of regeneration (I John 5:1). In fact, anyone who does not confess it is denounced as an antichrist and a deceiver (I John 2:22; 4:3; II John 7).
Likewise, concerning the name Lord, we are told that no man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 12:3). So great is that name! What is true of the name Lord is true of all the names of our Saviour.
His names are important because, unlike our names, they tell us exactly who and what He is. They are part of God’s revelation to us in Jesus Christ and are, therefore, an important part of the gospel message—the good tidings of salvation. To know and confess these names is to be saved.
That is the reason why there are so many names—this is true not only of Jesus but also of God and of the Holy Spirit. Depending on how one counts, there are as many as 150 different names of Jesus in Scripture. What a blessing to know them all, and what they mean!
We must stress, however, that it is not the mere repetition or meaningless chanting of the names that is blessed and brings blessing, but the knowledge, from the word of God, of what the names mean, and faith that He is everything His names declare Him to be.
This needs to be said plainly. There are many who think that the mere recitation of these names has some kind of power. There is no basis in Scripture for that belief. The saving power those names have is only by faith in Him who is known and loved by those names.
Do you know His names? Do you know Him by His names? Do you confess His Names before all the world? If you do, then you too are blessed with Peter and with all who love His name. Rev. Ron Hanko
Corporate and Personal Responsibility (6)
“In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge” (Jer. 31:29-30).
“I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me” (Ex. 20:5).
The reader of the News who submitted the question concerning the harmony between the two texts quoted above was concerned about how it is possible for Scripture to say, on the one hand, that each person is punished for his own sin and, on the other hand, to say that the iniquity of the fathers is visited upon the children.
We have answered this question from the Scriptures and have seen that a person is always responsible for his own sin and must give account of his own sin before God.
While it is true that God punishes sin with sin, and while it is also true that He does this in the line of generations so that the iniquity of the fathers is visited upon the children, it is also true that, always and under all circumstances, God receives in mercy those who forsake their sin, turn from their evil way and lay hold by faith of the cross of Jesus Christ.
When people forsake the sins of their fathers, seek God for mercy and confess their sins with sorrow, they find forgiveness for their sins and for the sins of their fathers.
Just as this was true of Judah, so it is true of us: we may not blame our fathers for God’s punishment that comes upon us. The way of escape is the way of confession. If we will not repent of our sins and of the sins of our fathers, we are punished for our own unbelief and justly sent to hell for our own wickedness.
But there is one more matter that must be addressed before we leave these two texts.
I mentioned earlier that the problem raised by these two passages goes to the very heart of the Reformed faith. Why is this?
It is because all Pelagianism and all Arminianism is individualistic. These heresies have no conception of corporate responsibility. This is plain in their denial of corporate responsibility as it applies to the human race in Adam.
As we said before, Adam sinned; the guilt of his sin is imputed to all men; the pollution of sin comes to every man because God punishes him for his guilt in eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Arminianism claims that a man cannot be guilty or held accountable except for what he himself does. It goes further and argues that God would be unjust to require from anyone what he cannot perform. On that basis it insists that, if man truly has no ability to repent and believe in Jesus Christ, then God could not justly command him to do so.
Therefore Arminianism teaches that God requires only what man can do. If God commands all men to repent and believe, then man must have the native ability to repent and believe of himself. In doing so it denies total depravity, and it also denies corporate responsibility.
The Heidelberg Catechism addresses this very issue, and answers the Arminian objection by appealing to corporate responsibility:
Doth not God then do injustice to man, by requiring from him in His law that which he cannot perform? Not at all; for God made man capable of performing it; but man, by the instigation of the devil, and his own wilful disobedience, deprived himself and all his posterity of those divine gifts (Q. & A. 9).
God commands man to obey His law. Man cannot, and he protests that God commands what he cannot do. God’s answer is this: I created you capable of keeping My law, but you chose disobedience. You brought this inability upon yourself. It is your own fault.
The Heidelberg Catechism appeals to corporate responsibility: we were created good in Adam, and we fell in Adam. Therefore it is our own fault that we cannot keep God’s law. When God demands obedience, we cannot plead inability as an excuse. That will not do. We are wicked by our own choice in Adam.
That is Reformed. The man who does not believe this must not claim to be Reformed. The doctrine of corporate responsibility lies at the heart of the Reformed faith. Prof. Herman Hanko
Is Jesus God?
One reader of the News has asked, “What does your church think of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is He all? Is He God?”
Though we have not yet written specifically on the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, we trust it has been evident from what we have written that we believe with all our hearts that Jesus is God’s only begotten Son, equal with the Father in all things.
This truth is plainly revealed throughout Scripture. In the Old Testament, passages such as Psalm 45:6 (“Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever”), Isaiah 9:6 (“his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God …”) and Micah 5:2 (“whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting”) teach it clearly.
In the New Testament there are passages that directly state that Jesus is God and equal with the Father (John 1:1; 5:18; 8:58; Rom. 9:5; I Tim. 3:16), and many others that imply it (Matt. 8:27; John 2:24-25; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3, 8).
He bears God’s names (John 8:58; 20:28), possesses God’s attributes (Micah 5:2; John 21:17; Rev. 1:8), performs God’s works (John 1:14; Col. 1:16-17; Heb. 1:3; Luke 5:20-24; John 5:21) and receives the worship that belongs to God alone (Matt. 2:8; 28:9, 17; Heb. 1:6; cf. Matt. 4:9-10).
One objection to modern Bible translations is that they often compromise this truth. The New International Version’s rendering of I Timothy 3:16 (KJV: “God was manifest in the flesh”; NIV: “He appeared in the flesh”) is a case in point: the clear reference to Christ’s divinity is removed.
The truth that Jesus is God is foundational to Christianity. Those who deny it are not to be recognized as Christians or churches, but as cults (e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Christian Scientists). If Jesus is not fully God, His words carry no divine authority and His work is emptied of saving power. His teaching becomes worthless, His sacrifice unable to save, His kingdom no better than any other, His promises no comfort and His life no sure example. If He is not God, our faith is vain and we are yet in our sins.
Therefore this confession, that Jesus is God’s only begotten Son, equal in all things with His Father, is not merely an important doctrine, but the foundation of all our hope, the source of all our joy, and the only way of salvation.
Do you know, confess, and follow Him as God? Rev. Ron Hanko
