Jehovah Saves

Matt. 1:21 "And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for he will save His people from their sins."

 

Two days ago I wrote about how God does not change. I noted that the word Lord is Jehovah which means "existing One". That the Lord is eternal. He has never had a beginning and He will never have an ending and in all of that He is consistent, constant, never ever changing. I made the case that this Jehovah is Jesus because of what it says in Hebrews where it says that Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever. Jesus also never changes. He has been the same for all time and eternity. I didn't realize at that time that I would be reading in Matthew today but look at what this verse says.

 

This verse describes the birth of Christ. The angel is communicating with Joseph telling him what is going to happen to Mary. The angel says that she is going to give birth. And before they had ultrasound Joseph knew the sex of the child…it was going to be a little boy. Now, what do parents do when they know the gender of their child before he or she is born? I know what Michelle and Jeremy did. They picked out a name. They would not tell us the name that they picked but they knew that Maddie was going to be Madeline before she was born. Madeline Ann Underwood. What a great name for an amazing little girl. Now she is here and is blessing all of us.

 

When Joseph found out that the baby was going to be a boy, he needed to come up with a name. Back then the name that was picked was usually a family name. (See Luke 1:61) He could have named Him Joseph or maybe even after his grandpa and named Him Jacob or his great grandpa and named Him Matthan. This, apparently, was not going to cut it…at a least not with the angel who was talking to Joseph because not only did the angel bring Joseph the news that this was going to be a boy, the angel also told him this little boy's name. He said: "You shall call His name Jesus." Jesus? Where did this name come from? How did the angel come up with this one? Did the angel grab a book of "What to name your baby" and figure out which one he liked? Hardly. This was a God thing in more ways than one.

 

First, this name was given from God through the angel. I don't think that Gabriel picked out the name. It was God, the baby's Father who determined the name. And God knew why He wanted this name. Just like many times we pick names and look at their meanings (we did with Michelle and Elise) so God picked a name because of its meaning. The angel then followed up this announcement with why he was giving this name. Because Jesus would save His people from their sins. The angel was saying: "Jesus saves". Jesus delivers. Jesus rescues. Jesus pulls His people out of the pit of sin and despair and guilt and depression and eternal damnation. It is Jesus who does this. It is only Jesus who does this. This was Jesus' life goal. Right away God placed on Jesus His purpose even before His birth. "Jesus, you are born to save."

 

The weird thing is this, and this is what takes me back to what I wrote two days ago: Jesus saves. The name Jesus actually means: "Jehovah saves". Not only is the Lord, Jehovah God unchanging and Jesus is unchanging, Jesus is Jehovah because He is the One who saves. His name says it all.

 

This Lord, this Jehovah, this God, this little baby that was about to be born…this Jesus, was God in the flesh coming "so that the world through Him might be saved." John 3:17

 

Lord Jesus, thank you for rescuing me.