Class Notes: 12/30/2008

The Names and Titles for TLJC reveal his person, his nature and his mission cont...

John 1:14 - And the Word (undiminished deity) became flesh (true humanity), and dwelt among us (the Incarnation), and we (James, Peter, and John) beheld His glory (the visual manifestation of the Uniform of Glory), glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (Bible Doctrine).

In our previous lessons we reviewed the doctrines that relate to TLJC in his first advent when he was incarnated via the virgin birth as celebrated on Christmas.

Christmas is about how God so loved the world that he gave his uniquely born son. It is about how God became human in order to solve the problem of man's of separation from God and man's inability to do anything about it.

Christmas is about what God did to resolve man's problem and how he did it while maintaining his perfect integrity that is composed of his perfect righteousness, his perfect justice and his perfect love.

Christmas is about the person of TLJC. It is about knowing him personally as he is revealed in the Word of God who has existed from eternity. John 1:1;

We started with a discussion of the doctrine of the virgin birth that was necessary for there to be no transmission of the OSN and then took up the doctrine of the hypostatic union that explains the mechanics of how undiminished deity and true humanity reside in the person of TLJC and then discussed the doctrine of the kenosis that defines God the Father's protocol for the deity and humanity of TLJC in hypostatic union.

In the context of these doctrines, we are now looking at the names and titles for our Lord Jesus Christ so we can see how the names and titles reveal the doctrines.

Both the Old and New Testaments provide us with names and titles for TLJC and it is from these we are given a clearer awareness of Jesus' person, His deity, His humanity, the hypostatic union and His mission as the Messiah, the King of Israel, the Head of the Church, and the Savior of mankind.

Last time we were discussing his title of "Savior" Luke 2:11; Acts 5:31;"God of my Salvation" or Deliverer. Psa 18:2; Rom 11:26;

In the OT the primary focus of salvation or deliverance was deliverance from danger in the believer's immediate circumstances in time.

In the NT the focus changes from temporal deliverance to deliverance from the slave market of sin and the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light and eternal salvation.

The Lord is still recognized as being able to deliver from dangerous circumstances, but the focus changes to the work of Jesus, who has provided deliverance from the slave market of sin, and who is presently delivering believers from the power of the OSN through the unique spiritual life of the church age, and who will ultimately save all who believe in him from the sin nature infused body of death in the appropriate resurrection. 1Cor 15:23-26;



Believers in the Old Testament are powerless to deliver themselves from their enemies and the New Testament portrays all of humanity as powerless to deliver themselves from sin and the death.

Believers in the Old Testament called on God for help, and He rescued them by defeating their enemies.

The New Testament shows how God acted through Christ to resolve the problem of sin, defeat death, and to provide eternal life for anyone, anywhere, anytime who would believe in Jesus. Rom 5:6,8,10;

Jesus Christ is our God and Savior. Titus 2:13; Net note 20 and our confident expectation of salvation.

Another Title for Jesus is " our Hope" 1Tim 1:1;

In this passage, Paul presents Jesus as our Savior and our Hope or confident expectation. We see here that our hope is not a situation, a condition or a place, but a person, TLJC.

In Col 1:27; Paul shows that the " our hope of glory" is "Christ in us"

Remember the word translated "hope" is the Greek word "elpis" that means absolute confident expectation.

So Jesus is our absolute confident expectation, and Christ "in us" is our absolute confident expectation of glory.

Since Christ is in heaven at the moment, heaven is where our hope is and when he appears we will be just like him. 1John 3:2;

Another title for Jesus is the "last Adam" 1Cor 15:45; or the "second man" 1Cor 15:47;

As we have seen, Luke's genealogy traces Jesus' line back to Adam, establishing that Jesus is true humanity.

Paul describes an even more significant relationship between Jesus and Adam in 1Cor 15:45a, where he states that "The first Adam became a living being" and then goes on to state that "The last Adam became a life-giving spirit" 1Cor 15:45b;

The first Adam launched the human race, but his choice to be independent of God placed all mankind into spiritual death and the slave market of sin, separated from God and powerless to do anything about it.

Jesus, The last Adam, became God's means of providing spiritual life, freedom from the slave market of sin, and reconciliation and peace with God.

Paul develops this in Romans 5:12-21; where He compares and contrasts the first and last Adam.

It was "through one man that sin entered the world, and death through sin, that resulted in death being spread to all mankind" (v12), but it was also through one man's "righteous act that the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.

For as by one man's disobedience all mankind was condemned, so also by one Man's obedience justification is available to all mankind" Rom 5:18-19;

Our heritage from Adam is sin, alienation from God and death, but now through faith alone in TLJC alone, we are born again and we belong to Christ, the Hero Founder of the new spiritual species, and our heritage in union with Him is righteousness peace with God and eternal life.

Another Title of Jesus is "I AM" John 8:58;

This title clearly identifies Jesus as deity and as the God of the OT.

When he made this statement he was under attack by the religious leadership in Judea who had rejected him.

These leaders denied Jesus' claim to represent God the Father on the earth, and they ridiculed His offer of freedom to those who believed in Him. John 8:32;

They insisted that as racial descendants of Abraham they were free and had never been in bondage and they made this claim in spite of the fact that when they spoke, Judah was under Roman domination. John 8:33;

Jesus, was speaking about spiritual freedom and slavery to sin, but the religious leaders kept on insisting that they were in the line of Abraham and therefore of the family of God because of their racial heritage.

Jesus rejected their claim and stated that if they had really been of Abraham's family line, they would have believed as Abraham had when God spoke to him. Gen 15:6;

The real heritage of Abraham was his belief and unbelieving Israel is not true Israel. Rom 9:6b; NET note 15

By rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, the leaders of Israel demonstrated that they were actually related to Satan because of their unbelief. John 8:44;

Jesus went on to say that Abraham had looked forward to the Messiah's day with happy anticipation, but the religious leaders ridiculed this claim by saying "You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?" John 8:56-57;

In response Jesus made a statement that His listeners clearly understood to be a claim of deity:

Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM." John 8:58;

Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus was hidden in the crowd and went out of the temple.

In making this statement, Jesus identified Himself as the God of the Old Testament who had spoken to Moses in Exod 3:14; and he was the one who was revealed in the all of the scriptures.

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