The Names and Titles of Christ

Tonight we're doing lesson two in our study of Christology. Last week we did lesson one, we looked at the person of Christ, kind of gave a broad summary and overview of that, and we'll be unpacking that over these 15 lessons. Tonight we're looking at the names and titles of Christ. That's a great way to get to know someone — is to find out who they are, find out what their name is and find out their titles. And Scripture has so many glorious titles of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We're gonna begin by looking at Bible point number one here on our handout.

Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew — that's the first blank, Hebrew — named Joshua, that's the second blank, Joshua. We have a little Joshua in our church, right?

Jesus means Yahweh is salvation, that's the third blank, salvation. Either Yahweh saves or Yahweh is salvation. Let me reread that. Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua. Jesus means Yahweh is salvation. The name Jesus is a very common name among Judaism in the first century. It was just as common as, say, Mike or Bill or David or something like that today, John. Very common name.

But it was a name again that highlighted that Yahweh was the Savior. Salvation would come from none other than from the hand of Yahweh. Matthew 1:21, this is the Christmas story that we read so often where the angel is talking about Mary bringing forth Christ — as in he said she will bring forth a son and you will call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. We often talk about the name of Jesus and when we talk about the name of Jesus, first and foremost in our thoughts should be that Jesus is Savior because that's what His name means. The application for number one is very simply, what does Jesus save His people from? That's the first blank, save His people from. If He's our Savior, what does He save us from? From sin. From sin, right? What else?

What's the result of sin, the wages of sin? Death. Death, yeah.

Saved us from God's wrath, that's right, Abigail. So Christ is our Savior, Jesus is our Savior, the one who saves us from sin, from death, from the flesh, from the devil, from this world, right?

Bible point number two, Christ — that's the first blank, Christ — is a title that refers to Jesus as the Messiah. That's the second blank, Messiah. We often think of Christ as the second name of Jesus or His last name, Jesus Christ, but it's not really a name, it's a title. Jesus is the Christ, you could even say.

Christ means anointed one, that's the third blank, anointed one.

In Old Testament times, God would anoint His chosen servants, whether they be a king, or a prophet, or a priest, to mark them with favor, to mark them with purpose — that this person is set apart in the service of God. Christ is our anointed one. Christ is the most frequently used title in the New Testament; it's used over 500 times. So it's used all throughout the New Testament. It's used in the Old Testament too — there's a Hebrew form of it — but in the New Testament it's over 500 times. This title reflects that Jesus was set apart as a prophet, priest, and king to serve God by revealing God, redeeming His people, and reigning over them.

As our king, He would be the one who would deliver us from the tyranny of sin, deliver us from the domain of death, and bring us into the kingdom of life.

As the prophet of God, He would be the one who would show us who the I Am is. All the characteristics that we ascribe to God that we studied about when we studied the nature and attributes of God are seen in the person of Jesus Christ, right? He is the living Word, if you will, of God made flesh. And again, He is our priest because He is the one who is our sacrifice to bring us to God, to bring us to at-one-ment so we can have atonement with God. He is the one who has gone before us, crossed through the veil, if you will, into the Holy of Holies so we could follow Him there. He's the one that intercedes for us on our behalf. He is our advocate — that's what it means by Him being our priest — not only does He make sacrifice, but He makes prayers for the people of God. And in all these things, Christ is a servant. He's a servant to God and a servant to man.

The Jews of the first century had a hard time understanding this. They viewed the Messiah as being a king, which that's part of it, right? That's part of being the anointed one, but they weren't looking at it as a king to deliver the people from sin. They were thinking of the king to throw off the Roman yoke, that they would no longer be under the thumb of the Roman Empire, that he would be a political savior, a messiah to throw off the Roman oppression. And they had a really hard time of visualizing the Messiah as being a servant, right?

But that's right at the heart of what being the Messiah is. When you read through Isaiah, especially when you get to Isaiah 53, and we read about the suffering servant, that just did not work with their mindset. They were appalled by that. They were offended at that. But Christ was prophet, priest, and king, and He was also the servant. He served humanity and He served God, right? He was our mediator to bring us to God.

Romans 3:24 says, "Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." To be justified — we'll be studying this when we get to soteriology — it means simply to be declared right with God, to be justified in His sight. And we have this justification freely by grace through redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Again, Christ here is not to be looked at as another name for Jesus, but it is a title. And it is the anointed one, Jesus, the one who was sent into this world to save us, to reconcile us. Application for number two: does your justification — that's the blank, justification — does it rest in Christ Jesus?

Does your justification rest in anything but Christ Jesus? Does your justification rest in your heritage? Remember what John the Baptist said? Don't think to say that Abraham's your father, as if that's going to save you. God can raise up stones if He wants to, children of Abraham from these stones. Don't think that because your mom and dad go to church, your dad's a deacon or an elder, or your dad's the pastor, or maybe your great-grandfather was a pastor, that you got special merit there. You don't. You're a sinner, you stink just like the rest of us, right? We have nothing in our hand that merits our justification. No amount of works that we can do can bring us to God, but Christ is the one by whose works we are justified, right? It's Christ's merits on our behalf, freely given to us by His grace.

Bible point number three, Lord is the second most common title of Jesus. So the first blank is Lord. Lord — the Greek word kyrios — is used in the New Testament almost as much as Messiah is used. It's used over 500 times in the New Testament, but it's not always directly speaking of Jesus. It is in a roundabout way. In other words, a lot of times in the New Testament it quotes from the Old Testament, it quotes the name of Yahweh, which Yahweh is usually referred to or translated as Lord in the Old Testament. And when it quotes the Old Testament, it'll say Yahweh in the New Testament, but it's Lord there. And it's referring to the God of this universe, who is Christ, right? Christ is God made flesh. Also, many of Jesus' parables are of a lord or a master. And you can say, well, that's not directly speaking about Him, but it really is. Because when He's talking about the parables of the kingdom, or He's talking about the wicked servants, talking about the vineyard workers who slaughtered the son of the lord or the master — who is that lord and that master? It's ultimately pointing to Christ Jesus.

So Lord is the second most common title of Jesus, although it can be used as an address of respect, kind of like we'd use the word "sir," as a title of respect. I grew up in Texas and we say yes sir to everybody, whether they're older than us or younger than us, yes ma'am too. But it's just a way of respect, right? It can be used for respect, or in reference to a master of slaves — a master of slaves is called a lord.

It is most commonly used of Jesus as an imperial term. That's the second blank, an imperial term — meaning a term of kingdom, a term of majesty. An imperial term emphasizing His divine sovereignty, that's the third blank, sovereignty, over all men and all things. So Lord is the second most common title of Jesus, although it can be used as an address of respect, or in reference to a master of slaves. It is most commonly used of Jesus as an imperial term, emphasizing His divine sovereignty over all men and all things.

Can you think of maybe a Christian hymn, or a Christian chorus that has Lord in it? He Is Lord. He is Lord, He is Lord, He's risen from the dead and He is Lord, amen, yeah.

What other hymns can we think of?

Christ the Lord Has Risen Today. Christ the Lord Has Risen Today. Our hymnody and our praise choruses are full of Christological content, right? Even going back to Christ, which was Bible point number two, can you think of a hymn or a praise song that has the name of Christ in it?

"In Christ Alone," our cornerstone, right? Jesus Shall Reign. "Jesus shall reign wherever the sun..."

"Oh Lord, my rock and my Redeemer." "Christ Jesus shall reign wherever the sun," right? The Messiah — so many of our hymns celebrate Christ.

So Philippians 2:9-11, in reference to the Lord, says, "Therefore God has also highly exalted Him, and given the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those in earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." Here we see all three that we've come across so far, right? Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

It pleases God, it pleases the Father that we exalt the name of Jesus above every name. And we'll be reading more and learning more about that when we look at the exaltation of Christ — we're gonna look at His humiliation, and then we're gonna look at His exaltation. And it does not detract from God's honor. In fact, He's glorified when we give preeminence to Christ. That's His will. They share their glory; they're equal in their glory.

Is there any — the application for number three — is there any name, that's the blank, any name that is set above Jesus?

Any name?

What about in this world? Come on, there's some famous names. Not picking on our president here, but we lived down in West Palm Beach for the longest time, in the Jupiter area, and so many buildings had Trump on there, right? That's a pretty big name here in America, but that doesn't exceed the name of Jesus, not at all, right? There may be earthly lords, so to speak — lords of government, lords of business, scions, if you will — but none of them can compare to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, right? And His name is set above all names.

Bible point number four, Son of Man — that's the third blank, man — is the third most common title of Jesus. It's probably used in the New Testament somewhere around 90 times, okay?

However, it is a title most frequently used by Jesus of Himself. That's the second blank, Himself. Jesus called Himself the Son of Man more than He called Himself Lord, more than He called Himself the Christ — He called Himself Son of Man.

It is not meant as a title of humility. You may have heard that sometime in a Bible study or a sermon, perhaps, saying, "Well, Son of God emphasizes His deity, and Son of Man, His humanity." That's really not true, okay? In fact, Son of Man is more of a divine title than even Son of God in many respects. They're both equal titles, but let me explain here. Son of Man is a title that emphasizes the divine rule — that's the third blank, rule — and authority — the fourth blank, authority — of Jesus. Son of Man is a title that emphasizes the divine rule and authority of Jesus.

We get this title from Daniel 7. The reference is Daniel 7, where the divine Son is pictured as He is enthroned as king and judge over all the universe. When you read that, it talks about one like the Son of Man coming on the clouds; He's coming into the throne room of the Ancient of Days, and He is given the dominion over everything, okay? That's a picture — actually, I believe it's an Old Testament picture of the ascension of Christ, where He is seated at the right hand of God. It's Christ coming into His rightful rule. That existed before all eternity past, but in His earthly condescension to us, when He came down to earth and took on humanity, there was a blackout, if you will, of His glory. There was a hiding of His glory, but when He resurrected and rose again from the grave, and He ascended to heaven, His glory is once again on full display, and He took His rightful place at the right hand of God Almighty.

Look at Mark 14:16-21. This is Jesus before the leaders of Israel, the priests, the leaders, the wise men, if you will. It says, "But He kept silent and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked Him, saying, 'Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?' Jesus said, 'I am, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.'" It symbolizes both judgment and also His authority, right? Rule — His rule and His authority. And so that particular term, Son of Man, when you see Christ use it, remember what it's talking about. It's talking about the One who rules over every square inch of this universe. The One who is the judge of all men, the living and the dead, the One whom we must all stand before one day, and all men must give account. He's the One who dashes those against Him with His rod. He's the One who laughs at those who would try to depose Him as king and try to throw off His reign. It's a highly authoritative title, the Son of Man. The application is this: be assured that Jesus will judge — that's the blank, judge — the world.

They say that you have two things in life that are certain, death and taxes, is the old saying. But really, two things in life are certain: death and judgment, right? It's appointed for a man once to die and after this, the judgment.

Every man, great and small, must stand before the Lord Jesus Christ one day, and He is the Son of Man, the One to whom all judgment and all authority has been committed.

Bible point number five, Son of God — that's the first blank, Son of God — refers to Jesus as the only begotten Son, the second person of the triune God. This title emphasizes His eternal equality, that's the second blank.

Glory, that's the third blank.

And love, that's the fourth blank, with the Father.

The Son of God refers to Jesus as the only begotten Son, the second person of the triune God. This title emphasizes His eternal equality, glory, and love with the Father. Christ has always existed. Before He became incarnate, Jesus was the second person of the Trinity, existing from before the world was created — all things were created by Him and for Him, and in Him all things exist, right? But before creation, there was the triune God — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit — and they existed in perfect harmony; they had perfect reciprocation, perfect transparency, perfect love, perfect blessing. He was the ever-blessed God from all eternity. In fact, remember in the high priestly prayer of Jesus in John 17, He says, "Father, restore to Me now the glory that I had with You from the very beginning." We see that Trinitarian love.

If you are a son, that presupposes you have a father, right?

And that father-son dynamic is always expressed in love. Doesn't a good father love his son?

And doesn't a son love his father? Doesn't a father glory in a son? I got two boys that are grown and I got a son-in-law, so I've really got three boys, and I'm proud of each one of them. They're all walking with the Lord; they're all in various aspects successful, whether it's in their business or in their family.

I'm very pleased with them, I'm happy, and I'll brag on them if you get me to talking about them, right — that's what you do. That's my boy, you know? Whether he's scoring a touchdown or whether he's being a faithful husband or whether he's being a good provider, you're proud of your boy, right? In the same way, aren't boys proud of their fathers? Don't they glory in their fathers? I remember I had those arguments on the playground — "My dad can beat up your dad," you know, those things. That's the same kind of Trinitarian love and glory that existed from all eternity between God the Father and God the Son.

Each of the four gospels culminates in the recognition of Jesus as God's Son. When you look at each of the four gospels, they have many different themes, but they all end up with: Jesus is the Son of God. Look in Luke 22:70.

"Then they all said, 'Are you then the Son of God?' He said, 'Rightly, you say that I am.'" And you can see down here below — on your own time, you can look up Matthew, two different places in Matthew, two different places in Mark, and also in John, where it's at the end of the gospel that it all culminates in the celebration and the acknowledgment that Jesus is the Son of God. If you are the Son of God, does that not imply likeness, right?

Does that not imply equality, if you're the Son of God, right? Meaning that He came from the Father, He is of the Father, He and the Father are one, is what Christ says. The application for number five: what does Jesus show us about the Father? That's the blank there, Father. What does Jesus show us about the Father? That He is equal with the Father, He is one with the Father, He is very God of very God. So what does Jesus show us about the Father?

He shows us His nature. Shows His nature. Shows everything, right? Can we see God? No — apart from Christ, we would know nothing about God. Christ is the one revealer of God, both in nature — what we call general revelation — and in special revelation, right? Christ is the One who is the divine Logos, the divine reason that explains God to humanity, right? And when you look at His life, you look at His love, you look at His faithfulness, you look at His mercy, you look at His holiness — are those not reflections of God the Father? Everything, every attribute that we studied about God, when we studied those 15 weeks of the attributes of God, we see in the Son, right? And we see in the Holy Spirit, because all three are divine persons.

Bible point number six: Jesus is directly called God — that's the blank, God — at least seven times in the New Testament. It's really nine times, but we're gonna go with the lower number, seven times in the New Testament.

We're not gonna jump the gun and go into these in depth tonight, because in a couple of weeks, Pastor Casey's gonna be teaching us on the divinity of Christ, and he'll be dealing with these texts, okay? We will study these in depth when we study the deity of Christ. But one of them I wanna go and look at — can't help but look at it — Hebrews 1:8-9.

Here, the Psalms are quoted in reference to Jesus. It says, "But to the Son, He says," and here he quotes, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever." He's calling the Son what? God. "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is a scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions." Christ is the Son of God, and He's called God directly many times in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, when you look at the whole of Scripture.

Going back to the Son of Man and the Son of God, and also Jesus directly being called God — can you think of any hymns? Let's first look at Son of Man. Can you think of any hymns or any praise songs that speak of the Son of Man?

I'm gonna cheat because I did one just a few weeks back. I introduced "Fairest Lord Jesus." Remember the last line? "Beautiful Savior, Lord of the nations, O Son of God and Son of Man, glory, loud, and honor be to Thee forever and ever," right?

That uses both those titles, Son of God and Son of Man, in the same one. How about Jesus being directly called God? Can you think of any hymn or any praise song, Christmas song perhaps, that has Jesus being called God?

You have to kind of think through it, but there are lots of them.

Kind of stuck on that one. I'm sure it'll come to you in a minute.

"Ancient of Days" is the one. Ancient of Days, yes. And that same passage there in Daniel 7, where Christ comes on the cloud into the throne room where the Ancient of Days is there — when you get to the book of Revelation, Revelation chapter 1 describes Christ with the exact same description of the Ancient of Days.

So it's letting us know that He is God, right?

Yes. "You Are My All in All." You Are My All in All, there you go, great job.

The application for number six: to know Christ is to know the one true God. That's the blank, God.

If you know Christ, you know God, because He's the revealer of God. He's God made flesh.

Bible point number seven. The Logos — L-O-G-O-S — that's the first point. The Logos, or Word, is the title of Jesus that was central to shaping the Christology of the early church in the first three centuries. There's probably no other title that captivated the minds of the early church fathers, of the Christian theologians and Christian philosophers of the first three centuries. Because remember, they were trying to figure out the Trinity, right? We've talked last week about Chalcedon and Nicaea, and we looked at the Nicene Creed. They were trying to formulate and make sense of who Christ is, who the Holy Spirit is, and who God is, because they knew they were God and they knew there weren't three gods. And so they were trying to formulate that.

It was central to shaping the Christology of the early church in the first three centuries. The ancient Greek philosophers tried to make sense of the universe too. Preceding Christianity, the Greeks tried to make sense of the universe. They searched for a mind or reason that they could attribute to the order of all things. They were trying to figure out what makes this universe tick, what makes it hold together. They knew there was order, but they didn't know what that order was. They couldn't figure it out.

To this ideal, unifying, ultimate reality, the Greeks gave the title Logos.

Today, if you read secular physicists, they try to come up with a unifying theory of everything, which is essentially what the Greeks were trying to do — trying to explain the cosmos, trying to explain the world, trying to explain man, trying to make one overarching thing. And usually it starts with a big bang and evolution, and that's how they tried to order things. The biblical understanding of the Logos goes well beyond Greek philosophy. In fact, it starts in Genesis. Everything starts in Genesis. Genesis 1:3 says, "Then God said" — what do you say?

"Let there be light." "And there was light." God said, and there was. Logos is the Word of God, right? God spoke this world into existence. All things were created by Christ and for Him, right?

In Jesus Christ, the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us. The second blank is flesh, and the third blank is dwelt among us. Far more than just being an esoteric mind or cause or reason or rationale for a universe, the divine Logos came into our world. He became incarnate. He took on flesh and He dwelt among His people. Great condescension, great mercy, great love — so that He could save us.

John 1:1-3 and verse 14: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God." So the Word is called a He. "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

Application for this: how is the Logos distinct yet identified as God? Look in verse 1 — how is the Logos distinct and yet identified as God?

It only makes sense if the Logos, or the Word, is the second person of the Trinity. He is God. He's the second person. We have one God and three persons — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, right?

Now, earlier when we had our Scripture recitation today, Abigail, you did such a great job with that. She read or quoted about the rationale of the book of John. The ending of the book of John is really sweet. In chapter 21:25, it says, "And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." Amen. So we could not — if everything He did was written, the world itself could not contain those books. I wanna ask you something.

As Christians, you bear the name of Christ, and I know you love Christ, and it's the desire of every Christian to be Christlike, to be conformed to the image of Christ. What if I told you I could guarantee you that you could become more Christlike, and that your growth in being conformed to His image would be spurred on by doing something very simple.

Would you wanna try?

Well, flip over to the back of your sheet.

Here it's got 130 different titles of Christ in the Scriptures.

Also beside each one, you'll see at least one reference verse. Many of these have multiple reference verses. For example, we talked about the Messiah being used over 500 times in the New Testament. I couldn't write out all 500 times. Same with Lord.

What I encourage you to do is this. Take this sheet home with you and start at the top when you have a quiet time. The first one is Advocate.

Take that Advocate and highlight it, and look at the reference beside it — 1 John 2:1. In fact, let's do that. Open up your Bibles right now.

This is not the Gospel of John — this is 1 John. So it's gonna be towards the end, just before Revelation. 1 John, chapter 2, verse 1.

Would someone wanna read that out loud for us, please?

"My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

Isn't that a wonderful thing? If we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father. The Father's not gonna squash us like a bug. We have an advocate, Jesus the Mediator, saying, "This one's Mine. This one was born in Zion. This one has the blood of Christ on him or her, right? His sins are forgiven. He is in Me. Therefore, God the Father is well pleased," right?

Each one of these names tells us about our standing with God. Meditate on that just for the day — nothing else. Just that Christ is your advocate. If you wanna go further, get a concordance, open it up, and look up advocate in the back. You may find other places where Christ is called an advocate. You'll find that He is our first advocate, but we have another advocate — another Paraclete, if you will — and that is the Holy Spirit, right? Who is the Spirit of Christ? When Christ went to the right hand of the Father of God, He sent the Holy Spirit, right, to be His advocate for us in our hearts, to be able to make intercession for us, right? And to lead us and to guide us into all truth.

When you realize that and you grasp that, does that give you confidence that you can boldly approach the throne of grace? Knowing that God's not gonna be displeased with you, that if you've confessed your sin, it's covered by the blood of Christ, and you have boldness when you pray. You have confidence when you walk that God is for you, and if God is for you, who can be against you? Who did not spare His own Son for you — how can He even withhold any good thing from you, right? So do that.

Take one title at a time, whether it's in your own personal study. Perhaps, men, if you are leading your families at the dinner table — sometimes you may say, "Well, I didn't really prepare an in-depth Bible study. I kind of feel out of sorts. I would feel embarrassed if I opened up the Gospel of John, went to a particular chapter, and I really don't know the context." Well, this is an easy thing to do, right? Pick a title of Christ. The more you know about Christ, the more you're going to love Him.

The clearer your vision is gonna be of Him. The more you're gonna see His love for you, right? And that will draw you near to Christ. You'll be conformed to His image. How can you be conformed to someone's image when you don't know them, right? So, over 130 different names and titles of Christ. I wanna go over a few of them that you may not know. In fact, actually first, as you scroll down and you look at that list, do you see any of them that are a favorite of yours and that means something to you? And you'd like to share about that title.

Give you an example — I like, in the first column down towards the bottom, the Friend of Tax Collectors and Sinners.

They were using that as a pejorative against Christ. They were saying, "This man — why do you look at him as a rabbi or a master or as the Messiah? He's a friend of tax collectors and sinners." These are people that we don't rub shoulders with. We don't allow them into our temple. These are unholy people. Christ is the Friend of Tax Collectors and Sinners, right? Doesn't that — no matter what you've done in your past, no matter how soiled your garments have become, Christ Jesus washes them white as snow when He fully accepts you as His child, if you are in Christ Jesus. There are no second-class citizens in Christ. What a beautiful picture that is, to know that Christ is a friend of tax collectors and sinners. What about any other? Do y'all see any names that mean something to you?

Yeah, the second column, way down — the Light of the World. John 8:12 has always been just a favorite concept of mine because of all that light does: it exposes error, it illuminates truths that we can align with Christ, it draws sinners out of darkness into the light. Amen. We are the light of the world as well. And you know, it's just a great concept.

Again, using your concordance, if you're doing this study on your own, you would find there in Matthew, you would find in John chapter 1, He's the true light that lights every man coming into this world, right? In Him is light and there's no darkness at all. He's the Father of lights, so there's no shadow or variation, right? And you start reading those and it thrills your heart to know this is who Christ is, right?

What other titles do you see that stand out to you? Yes, Tori.

Amen — they're in John chapter 6, you know. People were talking about manna, and Christ says, "You know, your forefathers, they ate the manna in the wilderness and they're dead."

"So I am the true bread that comes down from heaven. I give life. I alone can satisfy," right? Nothing else in this world can satisfy. You can watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and all your favorite shows and it's gonna leave you empty. It's junk food, so to speak, rather than the true spiritual food — it's the true Bread of Life, right?

Any other titles that you see that stick out?

Lily of the Valley, yes, Lily of the Valley.

And also, let's look here — I'm following with you, Lily of the Valley.

And there's another one from that same Song of Songs — trying to figure out — The Rose of Sharon.

Those titles — now you could say those are speaking of a man and a woman.

It doesn't directly say this is the Messiah, but that's what we call typology. When you get to the New Testament and we start reading in Ephesians, as Pastor is teaching — and where he is right now, in just a week or two, he's gonna show that the whole purpose of marriage is a mystery that points to Christ, right? And so Song of Songs is a celebration of marriage, right? And it has a lot of Christological typology there. You have, first of all, a shepherd king, right? Who smells of incense like a priest. And his thighs are described as pillars of cloud — no wonder where that's pointing to, right? And ultimately, all marriage, going from the garden all the way until now, points to Christ being the groom and the bride being His people, His covenant people with Christ, right? So yes, The Rose of Sharon, The Lily of the Valley — and there are songs for that, right? Most all these have songs. I remember singing as a boy, "The Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star" — you probably remember some of those, right?

Those are old-time hymns, but we learn theology, not just to feed our souls, but to give back praise to God, right? It's for both devotion and doxology. Let me show you a few of them that stick out to me.

Second column, about three quarters of the way up — I Am.

Jesus says, "Before Abraham was, I am."

That's the divine name there, Yahweh, right?

He is saying, "I am God," is what He's saying.

I looked just a couple down from there. Isaiah 49:3, the Messianic song — it's one of the servant songs, and in it, He calls the Messiah Israel, right? Because He's the true Israelite. He is the true prince with God. He's the One who perfectly obeyed what Israel was supposed to be. Israel was supposed to be a light to the world, to the Gentiles, to show who God is, and time and time again they sinned, time and time again they fell short, but Christ is the true Israelite — perfectly obeyed, perfectly keeping the old covenant so we can be offered the new covenant, right?

Let's look in the right-hand column, about maybe a third of the way down — our Passover. We talked about this when we did the Lord's Supper, I believe last time, that Christ is our Passover. That's a little bit of typology there, but what it is, it's showing that just as the death angel passed over the children of Israel who had the blood on their lintels, we find that Christ is our Passover Lamb, our sacrifice, whereby death passes over, judgment passes over, because we are covered in the blood of the Lamb.

About halfway down that third column, the Seed of Abraham — and in Galatians, it says that the promises of God to Abraham and the seed — it wasn't to seeds plural. Paul says it's to a seed, singular. In other words, it's to Christ. What he is saying is that all blessings, whether physical or spiritual, are only found in union with Christ. And he goes on to say in that same passage — and I have the verse there — that if you are in Christ, then you are inheritors of those blessings, right? You cannot find any blessing from God, any covenant blessing from God, apart from Jesus Christ — not by works, not by tradition of men, not by what church you go to, not by any ethnic group. It's solely found in Jesus Christ because it was to that seed that the promises were made.

We also find the True Vine, almost down towards the bottom. In the Old Testament, we find that Israel was called a vine planted by God, but that vine became a degenerate offshoot, a degenerate branch. Christ comes as the True Vine. And if you are in Christ, then the vine and the branches — can you really tell the difference apart? Shouldn't be, right? A branch is part of the vine, right? We've been grafted in, those who have faith in Christ Jesus.

And lastly, 2 Corinthians says that Christ is the divine Yes and Amen to all the promises of God. We find all blessing, all hope in Christ, in Christ alone. So this is just a little touch of these things. You'll be amazed at each and every one of these as you dig through them, as you look in your concordance — use your concordance as your friend, look them up. This is a terrific study. If you just did this five days a week, take one name each day, and you laid off on the weekends, this would take you through the end of the year, right? And how well you would know the Savior, how much more Christlike your life would be, because you become conformed to what you love. What you set before you is what you love, right? Set Christ before you, study His names, okay?