THE NAME JESUS
“Thou shalt call His name Jesus;
for it is He that shall save His people from their sins.” Matt.
1:21.
Even
today the naming of a new born child is an event full of interest. The
principles of choice are varied in these complex and somewhat superficial days.
Children are given names because the names have been accepted by their fathers
before them. Sometimes names are still given to children as expressing a hope
on the part of the parents, but as a rule they are simply given on the basis of
preference.
The Hebrews meant far more by their
names than we do. That will be discovered as the Old Testament history is read.
They were often wrong in their naming of the children. The very first name,
Cain, was a wrong name. Eve called her first-born Cain-Acquired. She was doomed
to disappointment. She had hoped that the promised seed had already come. And
the second name was also a mistake. She called her next boy Abel-Vanity. There
was far more to satisfy the mother’s heart in the coming years in Abel, even
though he suffered death, than in Cain.
Sometimes the names were tragic
names. Hosea, that prophet of the wounded spirit and the broken heart, as
children were born into his home named them, and in their naming is seen the
terrible conditions of the chosen people. He called the first Jezreel, judgment
threatened! He called the second Lo-ruham mah, mercy not obtained! He called
the third Lo-ammi, not my people!
When Mary’s Child was born, Joseph
named Him Jesus. And this was by special instruction conveyed to him by the
angel. That angel was the messenger of heaven’s thought, and of God’s will. The
Babe was registered Jesus in heaven. And that name, given by Joseph in
obedience to the instruction of the angel who had received his command in
heaven’s own high court, was a name which expressed heaven’s confidence in the
Child now born. Earth’s salvation will come as earth shares heaven’s faith in
Jesus; and the giving of the name at the first was expressive of this confidence
of God in the newborn Child.
This story of the giving of the name is
one of utmost interest. Do not be angry with me for bringing to you a text you
have known from childhood, but let us come back to this name, which every child
here who has begun to read at all, can spell, and try to understand some of the
things signified by the giving of this name. A few moments first, then, with
the name given; and, second, a consideration of the reason for giving this name
to this Child.
I would have you, first of all,
remember the humanness of this name. It was a very common Hebrew name.
Doubtless many a boy living in Judea in the days when the Babe was born was
called Jesus. And doubtless it had been for long years, for centuries, a
popular name in Jewish families; for of course you remember that Jesus is but
the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Joshua.”
There were many boys called Joshua, and in the Greek dialect obtaining at the
moment, many boys doubtless bore this name of Jesus. There is nothing startling
in the name. When the neighbors heard that Mary had called the new-born Boy
Jesus, they did not stop to ask what she meant. Many another Jesus was running
about in Nazareth and Judea, and all through the countryside it was one of the
most common names, almost as common as John is today.
Thus
God took hold of a name perfectly familiar, which set the new-born Child among
the children of men, rather than separated Him from them. He took hold of a
name that men were using everywhere, “Thou
shalt call His name Jesus,” the name that the boy next door has, the name
that men have been calling their boys by for centuries. “Thou shalt call His name Jesus.”
But
how came it that this name was so familiar? What were the associations of the
name in the Old Testament history? It was a name associated with two men
preeminently -the one who first received it, a leader; and, then, another who
made it conspicuous, a priest.
The first man who bore the name was
the great soldier who succeeded to the leadership of the people after the
passing of Moses, the man to whom there was committed the stern, hard, fierce
fight that was necessary to establish the people in the land. This man was born
in Egypt, in slavery, lived there about forty years, and then followed Moses as
he led the people out of Egypt; then spent the next forty years in the
wilderness, passing through all its experiences. Finally, he led the people
with the sword and terrific conflict into possession of the land. That is the
man who first received this name. So far as the Bible is concerned, and in all
probability so far as Jewish history is concerned, the name had never been
known before. It was made for him by Moses. His name was originally Hosea or
Hoshea: but Moses changed it and called him Joshua.
The
next man who bore the name conspicuously was a priest in the days of
restoration under Haggai and Zechariah. Now this Child is born, and heaven,
taking a name familiar in the homes of Judea, a name conspicuous in Hebrew
history because of its connection with the soldier leader and the restoring
priest, commands, “Thou shalt call His
name Jesus; for it is He that shall save His people from their sins.”
