There is a specific reason Messiah was
Named Jesus But it’s lost outside of Hebrew
The pastor asked if anyone knew the meaning of the name, Jesus? He postulated that the vast majority of people have little knowledge of the name’s meaning. I had a snippet of knowledge knowing that His name means, “Yahweh Saves” or “Yahweh save us”. Though I started to congratulate myself I first looked to the Hebrew when I realized He was never called by that name during His incarnate life. Jesus is Greek; yet, He lived in a culture that lived and spoke Hebrew. He would have a Hebrew name. During my study I realized why He was called Yeshua {English transliteration).
Christianity has lost much of its Hebraic foundational understanding over the centuries after the schism between the Jewish and Gentile believers. Christians had forgotten that Jesus prayed on the stauros for God to forgive those who killed Him. Many churches taught that Jews were Christ’s killers and this sinful rejection of God’s forgiveness plagued the churches through the centuries. The Romans had finally subdued Judah, renamed Palestine after the Philistines, and forbade any Jew to be found in the vicinity of Jerusalem on penalty of death. Jews became firmly entrenched in Pharisaical Judaism, rejecting any doctrine that ran counter to their Talmudic teachings. Forced to live in the midst of other cultures Judaism became a closed society to maintain its traditions. Christianity developed new myths to replace Hebraic understanding of biblical practices and words. Meanings became rote memorization rather than conceptual understandings integrating various concepts together.
Christianity has taught this meaning
However, few can elucidate the why
It dawned on me that while I knew the Savior as Jesus, no one knew Him by that name during His sojourn on earth. The name Jesus is a Koine Greek translation of His Hebraic name, Yeshua. Now, if I said you had to remember that Yeshua is Jesus I have only given you another fact to rote memorize. Thus, I have given you something else to forget. This is not helpful to you nor to your understanding of why He was given this name instead of the other titles He received such as Emmanuel, Counselor and so forth. (Is 9:6; Mt 1:23; Lk 1:31). In addition, as the above graphic depicts most people learn that the name Jesus means, “Yahweh is salvation”. While true to some extent, a more correct meaning is, “Yahweh save us”. This will become an important distinction later in this post.
However, I want to illustrate my answer as to why Christ {Hebrew: Messiah} was given the name Yeshua {Greek Jesus}. Lucifer received the title of “accuser” in the Old Testament because his chief activity was accusing the brethren night and day (Re 12:10). Not only did he do this with Woman in the Garden but he also accused Job to God in the first book actually penned (Ge 3:1-5; Job 1-2). The Hebrew word for accuser or accuse is, satan {שָׂטַן}. Zechariah has Satan {title} standing before the Angel of the Lord {Messiah} and accusing {sataning} Joshua the High Priest (Ze 3:1-5). In English this would read as: “…the Accuser standing at his right hand to accuse {satan} him…” Satan’s title directly derives from his actual actions. This is the usual sort of word play we can find throughout the Hebraic portion of the Bible. Well, this applies to Yeshua’s name also.
Yeshua has been translated into English and you know the name as Joshua. It was a common name then as now. The Gospel writers could have easily transliterated His Hebrew name as Joshua except that it would probably have limited the spread of the Gospel to mainly Jewish elements. This would have been disastrous over the final Roman victory that destroyed Judah as a province. Thus, they translated His name into Jesus. But, why did God give Him this name? Yes, it is descriptive of what He came to do, save us; but, there is another even more compelling reason. In the book of Exodus Moses tells the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord…” (Ex 14:13). That word translated as salvation is actually the verb form of the noun, or name, of Yeshua {יְשׁוּעָה}. The translators could just as easily made the English to read: “Fear not, stand firm, and see the Lord save us…” Thus, the Messiah’s main goal during His incarnation was to save us and this became a constant reminder whenever His name, Yeshua, was used.
Jews developed a simple mnemonic to
Teach children the meaning and name
This becomes significant during the Triumphal Entry of Yeshua into Jerusalem during the last week of His life (Jo 12:12-15). John records, and you were taught, that the crowd, actually his disciples, were quoting a Psalm proclaiming Him as King (Ps 118:25-26). This is true but if we look at the first word of verse 25 it is verb form of the Hebraic word, Yeshua or save us. To be more blunt the disciples were simply calling out His name as part of the song they were singing proclaiming Him as King. Why did John not write this as such? John tells us that he, and the other Apostles, did not understand the significance of this until after they were filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost (Jo 12:16). When they did write their gospel accounts of the Triumphal Entry they used the Greek word Hosanna rather than the Hebraic word of Yeshua possibly to prevent non-Hebraic speakers from being confused. What we would have heard had we been there was Yeshua’s name being repeated over and over and over again as they proclaimed their saving belief that He was both Messiah and King who will save them. These are not the people who will cry out on Friday, “Staurow Him! Staurow Him (Jo 19:6)!”
Yeshua probably has a unique name known only to the Father; yet, the name given to Him for us will forever remind us that He saved us every time we call on Him. It is probably why He will give each and every person a unique name known only to Himself and the person (Re 2:17). That name will be a unique identifier of our relationship with Yeshua throughout eternity future. That name may well describe our weakness by which we demonstrated our need for Him to save us as we could not save ourselves. Such was the name of Abel. In Hebrew it means breathless and conveys the connotation of one who is insignificant, or utterly worthless (Ge 4:2). Thus, Cain who was groomed to be messiah by Eve was incensed when God accepted his worthless brother over himself, the one given by God (Cain).
It is hidden gems like these that motivate me to study the Bible in its original languages. Our vernacular languages cover these gems hiding their significance behind a wall of convenience. This is a good place to start but to increase in spiritual maturity one should also study the original languages in some capacity. Remember: Yeshua means: “He saved me,” one who could never save himself. if I had been with His disciples on that day I too would have been crying out His name as my Messiah.