John Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: July 23

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John Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: July 23


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The Name of Jesus

Luk_2:21

The evangelist is careful to inform us that, on the eighth day from his birth, the child was circumcised according to the law.

Several reasons have been advanced by learned divines for our Lord’s submission to a rite, which was not, in any of its spiritual significance, needful to Him. Circumcision was, as we know, designed to signify “the putting away of the body of the sins of the flesh,” by the circumcision of the heart, which is the only thing that God regards as of real worth. Yet Christ, who, born without sin, required no regenerating process, submitted to this humiliating rite. By this He gave full proof of the truth of his human nature, showing that He was made flesh to dwell among us—in all things like unto us brethren—and was not a mere phantom, or spirit, or an angel, as some in a later age ventured to suppose. It was a proof that He was of the promised seed, the seed of Abraham. It was a mark of his regular initiation into the Jewish church, in which every man-child was circumcised. It was a removal of what the Jews would have regarded as the scandal of uncircumcision. Without this, Jesus would have been driven from the thresholds of their temple, their synagogues, and their dwellings, as unclean and profane. But the principal reason appears to be this—Circumcision was one of the matters which the law enjoined, and regarded as of essential importance; had it therefore been neglected in this case, He could not have been made in all things “obedient unto the law.” Besides, being born in the likeness of sinful man, He, by his submission to this rite, gave public testimony that He would fulfill the whole law for us, for “every man that is circumcised is a debtor to do the whole law.” “God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”

It was a custom among the Jews, that the child should at the same time receive its name. No law enjoined it; but the fitness of the practice was thought to be fairly deducible from the circumstance, that Abram’s name was changed to Abraham—that is, the now name of Abraham was given to him at the time the rite was instituted.

Accordingly, it was then that our Lord received the name of Jesus.

It was usual, as we have seen in the case of John the Baptist, for the name to be settled by the parents, with or without friendly discussion with, and suggestion from, the friends and neighbors who might be invited to attend the ceremony. But in this case there could have been few friends to adorn the occasion with their presence; and if there had been a hundred, their discussions would have had no influence upon the name, as both Mary and Joseph felt it to be a solemn duty to bestow upon the child no other name than that which had been imparted to each of them by the angel before He was born. Every thing relating to the Christ was of importance; and his name was of peculiar interest, especially among a people who attached so much consequence to the meanings of proper names as did the Jews. It was avowedly from such fitness of signification that the name was bestowed—“His name shall be called Jesus, because He shall save his people from their sins” Jesus means Savior, or Deliverer—and hence its fitness for One who had in reality undertaken this high function.

It was not a new name framed for the occasion. It is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua; and in its same Greek form it occurs as the name of the author of one of the Apocryphal books—“Jesus, the Son of Sirach.” The newly-born infant had, however, a claim to the name, with special emphasis of meaning, such as no one who ever bore it possessed or pretended to. To save his people from their sins, is what no one but He could do; and this entitles Him pre-eminently to the name of Savior, and teaches us that deliverance from sin is the only real salvation.

Syrian and Egyptian kings have assumed the name of Savior (Soter) as a distinguishing title; and many, in various lands, have been hailed as “the saviors of their country;” but this was only with reference to deliverance from foreign bondage or internecine war. No man was ever yet so called because he delivered the human mind from its bondage—none but this One, because He came to deliver the human race from its captivity to sin. Such a saviour as they were, and such as He was not, the Jews expected; and had he appeared as such, to deliver them from the yoke of Rome, they would have hailed Him with shouts, and gathered to his standard like bees. But because He professed no more than to save them from their sins, they looked darkly on Him, and denounced Him even unto death as an impostor. They did not want to be delivered from their sins, they did not feel the burthen of them; and they craved far more for temporal and political salvation. Alas, for them! and for us too, alas! It is easy to pity and condemn these Jews; but let us look nearer home, and the loud tongue may sink into whispering humbleness. We may see how many, even in this Christendom, that bear his name, fail to recognize Him heartily—and no other recognition is of any worth—as He who came to save them from their sins. We see how many there are who, indeed, decently acknowledge the surpassing greatness of this salvation; but who, if they ventured to speak plainly to their own hearts, would confess that deliverance from want, from pain, from trouble—that salvation from civil, political, or military thralldom, is of really far greater importance in their eyes than deliverance from their sins. When Christ said to the Jews that He came to make them free, they remarked that they were not in bondage. Then He told them, that he who lived in sin was the servant of sin; but, “if the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Intimating that there is no true freedom—no real salvation, but this.

“He is the freeman whom the [Son] makes free,

And all are slaves beside.”

And the man who has received from this great Saviour the charter of his deliverance, has obtained a freedom which man’s utmost wit or malice cannot touch; and which, in poverty, in distress, amid persecution, upon the bed of pain, in a low dungeon, can make him triumphant, exultant, free, in the conscious enjoyment of that salvation from his sins, which the Savior won so dearly for him—of that liberty with which Christ makes his people free—the liberty of the sons of God.

Thus taken in its fullness of meaning—Savior—the name of Jesus becomes very precious. It is the sign and symbol of our faith and hope. It can throw a gleam over our sorrows and afflictions, and impart a holy and heavenly character to our joys. It can banish the dreariness of solitude, and give to social life its highest charm. It can invigorate the labors of the day, and sweeten the repose, or mitigate the restlessness, of night. In life, it is a never-failing fund of delight. It cheers, or solaces, the hour of death; and it becomes the source of that unfaltering confidence with which we look forward to the solemnities of the last day. “This is the name which we engrave in our hearts, and write upon our foreheads, and pronounce with our most harmonious accents, and rest our faith upon, and place our hopes in, and love with the overflowing of charity, joy, and adoration.” Note: Jeremy Taylor. Great Exemplar, p. 63.