Jesus

Jesus. Literally, “Yahweh saves.” This name is a prophetic name, fulfilled on the advent of Jesus of Nazareth. Before his coming, “Yahweh saves” is eschatological, salvation promised and set for the future by his agent of salvation. “Messiah,” the anointed, is the ultimate King of the people of salvation, again a sharply prophetic title, thus, “Jesus Christ,” or “Jesus Messiah.”

The designation of this Messiah which will come to save is given explicitly and by implication in the OT and NT as “the Word of God,” since he represents God’s faithfulness to his promise to save. This crystallized in the Targumic period, where the word memra is used liberally in the place fo God’s person and his actions. For example, in the Jerusalem Targum of Genesis 1:27, “And the Word of the Lord created man in His likeness.” In Targum Onkelos of Genesis 3:8: “And they heard the voice of the Word of the Lord God walking in the garden in the evening of the day.”

In the New Testament, John explicitly states in John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “Word of God, the informational equivalent of Jesus Messiah, is consistently given as Messianic Prophecy itself. For example in Luke 3:2: …”the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.” Then the Word is speciated:

Luke 3:4-6 (KJV) As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Salvation is then set not only on faith in the Person of this Word but the Father’s Word of prescience and fulfillment itself.