The Christ of Christmas
The Name of Jesus (Isaiah 45:22-23; Philippians 2:10-11)
Did you ever notice how society allows people to use the name of God, yet frowns on the public mention of Jesus? It’s nothing new. It’s happened before. As the songwriter said, There must be something about that name.
700 years before the birth of Christ, God, through His prophet, wrote in Isaiah 45:22-23, “Look unto me, and be saved for I am God, and there is no other. [23] I have sworn by Myself and the Word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness (for this cause), That unto Me every knee shall bow and every tongue (proclaim) that Jehovah Yahweh is God.”
Do the words of Isaiah sound familiar? They should. These same words were quoted by Paul with one significant difference in Philippians 2:9-11, “That God has highly exalted Him and has given Him a name above all others [10] That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is God.” Who is the God of Isaiah 45:22-23? The prophet used the name Jehovah. In Philippians 2:10, in quoting Isaiah 45:22-23, what name was substituted in the place of Jehovah? Jesus! If the wording of two passages is the same with one exception – that the name Jesus is substituted in the place of Jehovah) – then Paul realized what we must acknowledge: that Jesus Christ is God, yesterday, today and forever. Since Old Testament Jehovah is New Testament Jesus, should even a ‘politically correct’ society keep us from mentioning the one name that God uses as His own – Jesus?
In his book Mere Christianity, the popular Christian author C. S. Lewis addressed society’s sensitivities when he wrote (Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1970), 40-41).
I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about [Jesus]: “[that] I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
Then, Lewis added (Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1970), 40-41),
“You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about Him being [merely] a great human teacher. He has not left that [option] open to us. He did not intend to.”
Who is God to you? The Bible says, He is Jesus. This Christmas season, since every knee will bow, why not honor Jesus today by mentioning and worshiping His name? After all, without Christ there would be no Christ-mas.