Jesus
The name Jesus is special among all the names of our Saviour. It is His personal name. Many of His other “names” are really titles, not personal names. This is true especially of names like Christ and Lord. Jesus, however, is the name that was given Him by His Father and the name by which He is known and loved in the family of God. It is the name by which we know Him, talk to Him and talk about Him.
When we remember the meaning of the name Jesus, we realise how wonderful this name is. His personal name in the family of God means “Saviour” or “Jehovah saves.” Think of it. Every time we speak to Him or about Him, we are saying that He, and He alone, is Saviour.
The meaning of the name Jesus was given by the angel Gabriel when he announced the birth of Jesus to Joseph: “Thou shalt call his name JESUS,” the angel said, “for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). What a wealth of meaning there is in that one name!
Because His name refers to Jehovah (the J is a shortened form of the name Jehovah), the message of the angel concerning the name Jesus means that Jehovah God saves. No one else can. Jesus is God’s Saviour.
His name also speaks of the certainty of salvation for all who believe in Him. He shall save His people. Because He is God’s Saviour, He is a sure and complete Saviour.
His name even speaks of the fact that He saves those, and those only, whom the Father gave to Him: “His people.” He is not the Saviour of all men without exception. To some that seems a terrible truth, but to those who understand it, it is a very blessed and wonderful truth. That He saves some only means that He is not one who merely tries to be a Saviour and fails with many, but one who surely and infallibly saves all those who are His own by the gift of God.
His name reminds us, too, that He is a Saviour from sin. Many do not want such a Saviour. They only want someone who will fill their bellies, heal their bodies and solve their present problems. But those who by grace know themselves to be sinners before God, and who pray like the publican in the temple, not daring to lift up their eyes, “God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13), see in Christ their heart’s desire and the assurance that there is a way of escape, pardon and peace with God.
What a blessing to know Him as Jesus! Truly there is “none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). We pray that many may thus know Him. Rev. Ron Hanko
The Heavenly Paradise
“And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
The reader who asked that this verse be discussed in the News asked specifically, “Is paradise heaven?”
If we consult the context of the verse, we discover that these words were spoken by our Lord to the thief on the cross. During His crucifixion the thief prayed, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (42). The text is Jesus’ blessed answer to him.
The answer to the reader’s question is an emphatic yes. Paradise is indeed heaven. It is good, though, to give some attention to the reasons for this, for that also gives an opportunity to say a few things about a very important subject.
That paradise is heaven is evident, first, from the fact that the two are identified in II Corinthians 12:1-4. Paul speaks there of revelations he received from Christ. He says that he was “caught up to the third heaven” (2) and also “caught up into paradise” (4).
Second, Scripture teaches that at the moment of death we go to heaven and are with Christ. This is stated in II Corinthians 5:1: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Notice the words, “we have.” At the moment this earthly house is dissolved, we have a building of God. The Lord promised the thief life with Him in paradise “today.” It was that day the thief died and that very day his earthly house was dissolved. This is also the teaching of the creeds. In the Heidelberg Catechism, e.g., we read:
What comfort doth the ‘resurrection of the body’ afford thee? That not only my soul after this life shall be immediately taken up to Christ its head; but also, that this my body, being raised by the power of Christ, shall be reunited with my soul, and made like unto the glorious body of Christ (Q. & A. 57).
Third, the first paradise, created by God during the creation week, was a picture of the heavenly paradise. In the first paradise there was a tree of life and a river that became four rivers (Gen. 2:9-14). In heaven there is also a tree of life. In Revelation 2:7 and 22:1-2, we read of the river and the tree of life:
And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits …
This has some important implications.
God never planned to realise His own eternal purpose in the first paradise. It was created only to serve the purpose of God in bringing His elect people to the second paradise, and it was, therefore, only a picture. In fact, it pictured the tabernacle and temple, which also were Old Testament pictures of heaven. Consider the comparison: the outer court of the temple was comparable to the garden of Eden. The inner sanctuary was comparable to paradise, on the east of Eden. The Most Holy Place was comparable to the tree of life. In the Most Holy Place God dwelt with His people in covenant fellowship. At the foot of the tree of life God met with Adam and spoke with him as a friend speaks with a friend.
It must also be remembered that the first paradise was only a picture of all that God purposed to do. The glory of the second paradise far outweighs in splendour and blessedness the glory of the first. God gives to His people, out of the riches of His grace, not simply the old paradise that we lost through our sin, but the new paradise of the new heavens and the new earth, when heaven and earth shall be one and the earthly raised to the glory of the heavenly. That is a great and blessed promise of God, which we receive from Him solely out of grace.
And so the believer has a great hope to look forward to. It is a hope that takes away all fear of death. It is such a glorious hope that he feels the tug of it throughout his life. Recall Paul’s words: “For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better” (Phil. 1:23). Once, the grave was the doorway to hell; but now, through Christ’s resurrection, it has become the doorway into heaven, for all those who are in Christ.
It is the hope that, at the moment of death, we shall be in the heavenly paradise. In that hope we live and die. Thank God through Jesus Christ! Prof. Herman Hanko
What Is Dispensationalism? (1)
The question for this and subsequent issues of the News is, “Who and what is a ‘dispensationalist’? and is dispensationalism to be considered heretical or part of historic, biblical Christianity?”
The name “dispensationalism” refers to the belief that history is divided into different and separate periods (or “dispensations”) in which God deals with mankind in different ways (few dispensationalists agree on the exact number of dispensations). These “dispensations” are not merely clearer revelations of what preceded, but entirely new and different revelations that have little or nothing to do with what preceded. For example, the Old Testament “dispensation” is said to have little or nothing to say to the New Testament “dispensation” believer. It is primarily, even exclusively, for national Israel.
There are several teachings, then, that are basic to dispensationalism:
- that all Scripture is to be interpreted literally. By this, dispensationalists mean that nothing in Scripture can be figurative, symbolic or spiritualised—e.g., Israel always means Israel and never refers to the church (yet the Bible itself says that parts of it are symbolic: Revelation 1:1 says, “he sent and signified it”).
- that Israel and the church are two (separate) peoples. (compare this, however, with Acts 7:38, which calls Old Testament Israel “the church in the wilderness”). Whether the two are forever separate is debated. Some say that “never the twain shall meet” even in eternity, others that they will be together in eternity. But even then, they are treated as two distinct groups with different revelations, different promises, different futures and different relationships to God and Christ (e.g., Christ is the King and Lord of Israel, but “Head” of the church).
- that God has more than one plan in the Old and New Testaments for Israel and the church. The church, in this system, is not part of God’s initial plan but is a kind of “parenthesis” (the dispensationalist’s own word) in history. Classical dispensationalism, as represented by the Scofield Reference Bible, even teaches a different way of salvation for Israel than by faith in Jesus Christ (compare this, however, with Acts 4:12). In other words, God’s plan for Israel differs with His plan for the church, to the extent of providing another way of salvation.
- that different parts of Scripture refer to different groups of people—e.g., the “sermon on the mount” (Matt. 5-7) is for the Jews, not for the church. Dispensationalism also teaches that none of the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament have reference to the New Testament church. They are all part of God’s revelation to Israel alone and their fulfilment is for the Jews in the earthly land of Israel.
- that law and grace are opposites (compare this with Galatians 4:21). This means, according to this view, that the Ten Commandments have no application or authority for New Testament Christians. Jesus’ statement about the law in Matthew 5:17-18 is one reason most dispensationalists would say that the “sermon on the mount” is “Jewish”).
With all these distinctions between dispensations, between Israel and the church and between law and grace, dispensationalism claims to be “rightly dividing the word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15). We believe it wrongly divides the word, and we will show why in the next issue of the News. Rev. Ron Hanko
