The Name of the Son

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 107:1-3
• Hymn — Now Thank We All Our God (#181)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Catechism Reading — Westminster Larger Catechism, Questions 9–11
• Hymn — The Apostles' Creed (#560)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Scripture Reading — John 20:30-31
• Sermon
• Hymn — O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing (#291)
• Benediction

Sermon Title: The Name of the Son

Scripture: John 20:30-31

I. The Name Jesus

• A. The name Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Joshua, meaning "Yahweh is salvation," and is consistently linked in the Old Testament to Yahweh's strength (chayil).

  1. Isaiah 12:2 — "The LORD God is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation."
  2. Psalm 27:1 — "The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?"
  3. Psalm 118:14 — "The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation."

• B. This pattern of Yahweh's saving strength originates in the Song of Moses after the Red Sea crossing in Exodus 15:1-21; just as Yahweh threw horse and rider into the sea, so Jesus is Yahweh come down to destroy sin.

• C. Matthew 1:21 — the angel instructs Joseph: "You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

  1. Unlike Joshua of old, through whom Yahweh brought salvation, Jesus himself is Yahweh salvation incarnate.
  2. Micah 7:19 uses Red Sea language to describe God casting all our sins into the depths of the sea — a picture of Christ's total, conquering victory over sin.

• D. The salvation Jesus brings is not merely a pardon but a conquest: he suffocates sin, treads it underfoot as a conquering king, and throws it into the depths of the sea.

• E. The object of this mighty work is particular — "his people" — underscoring the personal, covenantal nature of Christ's saving work.

II. The Name Christ

• A. Christ is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew Messiah, meaning "the Anointed One"; anointing in the ancient world carried two implications.

  1. The anointed one is subject to and in service of the one who anoints (the Father is greater; Christ only does what the Father commands).
  2. The anointing is the seal of God's choice — this is the Father's chosen one (illustrated by Aaron's staff in Numbers 16 and David sparing Saul in 1 Samuel 24).

• B. The anointing of Christ took place at his baptism in the Jordan, where the Spirit descended and the Father declared, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" — echoing David's anointing in 1 Samuel 16.

  1. John the Baptist's cry, "Behold, the Lamb of God," before the baptism introduces priestly anointing language alongside kingly language.
  2. Some scholars note that Jesus was approximately 30 years old at his baptism, the age at which a high priest was anointed, and that John the Baptist was of the Levitical line.

• C. At the Transfiguration, the Father again seals and anoints Christ — this time adding "Listen to him," identifying Jesus as the God-approved, God-sealed prophetic voice.

• D. To confess Christ is to confess the one anointed to all three Old Testament offices: prophet, priest, and king — and to exclude all rival claimants (Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and others).

III. The Name Son — His Only Begotten Son

• A. The creed's phrase "only begotten Son" refers to the divine nature of the Son as described in John 1:14 and John 1:18; he is not a high-ranking angel (as Arianism and Jehovah's Witnesses claim) but fully God as the Father is fully God.

• B. Hebrews 1:3 describes the Son as "the exact imprint" (hypostasis) of the Father's nature — the same substance and essence; everything that makes the Father God makes the Son God.

• C. The phrase "eternal generation of the Son," first coined by Origen in the second century, guards against Arianism's error that "there was a time when the Son was not."

  1. The Son's generation is eternal because he shares the Father's eternality as part of his divine substance.
  2. Heresy at this point typically defines God by human categories (if begotten, then once non-existent), reversing the proper order: human reality is derivative of and defined by divine reality, not the reverse.

• D. The proper order is: the eternal gives meaning to the temporal, not the reverse — eternal love between Father and Son is the basis for human love; eternal generation is the basis for human generation.

• E. To confess "his only begotten Son" is to deny the right of any human philosophy, higher criticism, or secular worldview to define God on human terms; God alone, through the Son, has the prerogative to define himself.

IV. The Name Lord

• A. The Greek word kyrios (Lord) denotes power, authority, control, and legal ownership; it translates the Hebrew Adonai, which the scribes used as a reverent substitute for the covenant name Yahweh in the Septuagint (approximately 7,000 occurrences).

• B. To call Jesus "Lord" (kyrios) in a Jewish context was to identify him with Yahweh, the great I AM.

  1. Thomas's confession in John 20:28 — "My Lord and my God" — is best understood as "My Yahweh and my Elohim."
  2. John 8:58 — "Before Abraham was, I am" — Jesus applies the divine name to himself directly, and his Jewish opponents immediately seek to stone him for blasphemy.
  3. Isaiah 40:3 — "Prepare the way of Yahweh" — is applied by Mark at the opening of his Gospel to John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus.

• C. The title Lord also carries a Davidic, royal-coronation meaning rooted in Psalm 110:1 — "Yahweh said to my Adonai, sit at my right hand."

  1. Jesus uses this passage in Matthew 22:41-45 to challenge the Pharisees: if David calls him Lord, how can he merely be David's son?
  2. Peter quotes Psalm 110 in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:34, concluding: "God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."
  3. Psalm 110:1 is also cited in Hebrews 1:13 in the context of Christ's exaltation above the angels.

• D. The ascension is the coronation of the greater David; confessing "our Lord" is the church's acclamation — "long live the everlasting King" — in obedience to the Father's command.

  1. Philippians 2:9-11 — God has bestowed on him the name above every name, so that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
  2. We confess his lordship now, in glad submission, so that the day of his return will be a day of salvation rather than of dread.