We have pointed out that the name Jesus means Jehovah the Savior, or Jehovah our salvation. Jesus is Jehovah-Savior, the One who saves us from everything God condemns and from all negative things. He saves us from our sin and sins, from all the besetting sins in our daily life, from the evil power of Satan, and from every bondage and addiction.
Jesus is not only the Savior—He Himself is also our salvation. He does not simply give us salvation; He comes to us as our salvation.
When we call upon Him to save us, He is our salvation. When we call on Jesus we are not simply calling the name of a man. Jesus is not simply a man—He is Jehovah our Savior, Jehovah our salvation. When we call on the name of Jesus, we are calling on Jehovah as our Savior and as our salvation. Whoever calls on the name of Jesus will be saved.
Jesus is also the real Joshua. Moses brought God’s people out of Egypt, but Joshua brought them into rest. As our Joshua, Jesus brings us into rest. Matthew 11:28 and 29 indicate that Jesus is rest and that He brings us into Himself as rest. Hebrews 4:8, 9, and 11 also speak of Jesus as the real Joshua who brings us into the rest of the good land. He is not only our Savior saving us from sin; He is our Joshua bringing us into rest, which is Himself as the good land. Whenever we call on His name, He saves us and brings us into the enjoyment of Himself.
In His incarnation Christ is also Emmanuel: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (Matt. 1:23). Jesus was the name given by God, while Emmanuel, meaning God with us, was the name called by man. Jesus the Savior is God with us. God is He, and He is God incarnated to dwell among us (John 1:14). He is not only God but God with us. Without Him we cannot meet God, for He is God. Without Him we cannot find God, for He is God incarnate.
Christ is Emmanuel, God with us. “Us” refers to the saved ones, the believers. Day by day we have Christ as Emmanuel. Whenever we have some experience of the Lord Jesus, we shall realize that He is God with us. God said that His name would be called Jesus. But as we receive Him and experience Him, we realize that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us.
When we call on Jesus, we have the sense that God is with us. We call on the Lord Jesus and we find God. Jesus is not only the Son of God but also God Himself. When we call on Jesus, we have Jehovah, we have the Savior, we have salvation, and we have God with us.
The more we experience the Lord Jesus, the more we shall know that He is Emmanuel, God with us. As we experience Him, we may say, “This is God! This is not God far away from me, or God in the heavens, but God with me.” In our experience Jesus truly is Emmanuel.
According to Matthew 18:20, whenever we are gathered together into the name of Jesus, He is with us. This is Emmanuel, God with us. The presence of Jesus in our gatherings is actually God with us.
At the end of Matthew 28:20 the Lord says, “Behold, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age.” Here the Lord promises to be with us in His resurrection with all authority all the days until the consummation of the age, that is, until the end of this age. “All the days” includes today. The Lord Jesus as Emmanuel is with us now, today!
Today Christ is not only among us; He is in our spirit. Second Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” This One who is with our spirit is Emmanuel, God with us.
Today the Lord’s presence is the Spirit. We cannot separate the Spirit from the presence of Jesus. The Spirit is simply the reality of the Lord’s presence (John 14:16-20). This presence is Emmanuel, God with us.
In His incarnation Christ is the Son of Man (Matt. 16:13). Because the Lord Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit, He is the Son of God. Because He was also conceived in and born of the human virgin, He is the Son of Man. On the divine side, He is the Son of God; on the human side, He is the Son of Man. Because the Lord Jesus is both the Son of God and the Son of Man, sometimes He indicated to others that He is the Son of God (John 5:25; 9:35, 37; 10:36), and at other times, that He is the Son of Man (John 1:51; 3:14; 5:27).
In His incarnation Christ emptied Himself by putting aside the form, the outward expression, of His deity and becoming in the likeness of men. He was God with the expression of God. Although He was equal with God, He put aside this equality and emptied Himself by taking the likeness of men. He became a man through incarnation. He did not regard His equality with God as a thing to grasp. Rather, He laid aside this equality and emptied Himself. This does not mean, however, that Christ in His human living was no longer God. It simply means that He put aside His outward expression of God. Although He subsisted in the form of God, He became in the likeness of men and in the fashion of a man. As a result, He had the appearance of a man instead of the expression of God.
To accomplish God’s purpose and to establish the kingdom of the heavens, it was necessary for Christ to be a man. Without man, God’s purpose cannot be carried out on earth, and the kingdom of the heavens cannot be constituted on earth.
Christ in His incarnation is also the second Man (1 Cor. 15:47). Through the incarnation of Christ, God in the Son became a man. God had created man with a purpose according to His design, but man failed Him in His purpose and ruined His design. Instead of creating another man, God Himself came to be the second Man. God came to be the second Man not in the Father nor in the Spirit but in the Son.
Concerning Christ as the second Man, 1 Corinthians 15:47 says, “The first man is out of the earth, earthy; the second Man is out of heaven.” “Out of the earth” denotes the first man Adam’s origin, and “earthy” denotes His nature. As the first man, Adam is the head of the old creation, representing it in creation. As the second Man, Christ is the head of the new creation, representing it in resurrection. In the entire universe there are two men: the first man Adam, including all his descendants, and the second Man Christ, comprising all His believers. We believers were included in the first man by birth and became part of the second Man by regeneration. Our believing has transferred us out of the first man and into the second. As a part of the first man, our origin is the earth and our nature is earthy. As part of the second man, our origin is God and our nature is heavenly. “Out of heaven” denotes both the second Man Christ’s divine origin and His heavenly nature.
In the incarnation Christ is not only the second Man but also the last Adam. Concerning Christ as the last Adam, 1 Corinthians 15:45 says, “So also it is written, The first man, Adam, became a living soul; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” This verse implies both the old creation and the new creation. Adam, the first man, was the head of the old creation. When God created him, Adam became a living soul. This means that he became a person, a human being. In Hebrew the word for Adam means man. Christ being the last Adam implies a termination and conclusion of the old creation. The old creation ends with a man, the last Adam. This Man who terminated the old creation became in resurrection a life-giving Spirit. Now this Spirit is the center and lifeline of the new creation. The old creation was created by God. The new creation, however, comes into being not by creation but by resurrection. Therefore, 1 Corinthians 15:45 implies two creations: the old creation with man as a living soul to be its center, and the new creation in resurrection with the life-giving Spirit as its center. Through incarnation Christ became the last Adam to die on the cross for the termination of the old creation, and through resurrection He as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit to germinate the new creation.