Names in Scripture are never mere labels. They reveal identity, character, and calling. Nowhere is this truer than with the names and titles of Jesus. Each of his main names — Jesus, Lord, Christ — discloses who he is and what he came to do. Together they form a portrait of the Saviour-King at the heart of the gospel.

(1) Jesus — the Saviour

‘You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’ (Matt 1:21). In this declaration, Jesus’ identity and mission are inseparably bound to the meaning of the name given to him by God through the angel. The name ‘Jesus’ is not merely descriptive but revelatory, disclosing both who he is and the purpose for which he has come. The word ‘save’ here refers not to deliverance from human hardship in any general sense, but to the deeper and more decisive problem of sin — the corruption of human nature and the consequent acts of disobedience against God.

‘Although it is a proper human name, Jesus identifies him as Saviour, an identity that characterises God alone. In rescuing us, Christ reveals the true God.’¹Daniel Treier, Lord Jesus Christ (Zondervan, 2023), 45. In the Old Testament, it is God himself who is the Saviour; the name ‘Jesus’ — from the Hebrew Yehoshua, meaning ‘Yahweh is salvation’ — therefore carries an implicit yet profound claim to his deity. In the context of first-century Judaism under Roman occupation, expectations of ‘salvation’ were often directed toward national and political deliverance. Yet the mission given to Jesus redefines and deepens this expectation. He comes not to address merely external conditions, but to confront sin — the underlying cause of all humanity’s misery and alienation from God.

So central is the meaning attached to the name of Jesus that it led Peter to declare: ‘there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12). Paul likewise proclaims that his is ‘the name that is above every name,’ and that ‘at the name of Jesus every knee should bow’ (Phil 2:9-11). Across the New Testament, repentance, faith, baptism, forgiveness, the reception of the Spirit, the proclamation of the kingdom, and the gathering of the church are all to be carried out deliberately and exclusively in his name (1 John 3:23; Acts 2:38; Col 3:17).

(2) Jesus Is Lord

‘The Christian message confronts us in the first place as good news that makes certain claims about Jesus.’²Peter Jensen, ‘Revelation,’ Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Second Edition(Baker, 2017), 747. Basic among these is that Jesus is Lord. The New Testament indicates that ‘The gospel can be boiled down to a three-word statement: “Jesus is Lord.”’³David Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom (Whitefield Publications, 2016), 92. This was the earliest, tersest Christian confession (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 12:3; Phil 2:11).

In the Bible the term ‘Lord’ appears more than six thousand times as the proper name and title for God. Its identification with Jesus of Nazareth — kyrios, the Greek rendering of Yahweh — occurs more than one hundred times in the New Testament, drawing him into the very identity of the God of Israel. The immediate and plain sense of calling Jesus Christ ‘Lord’ is thus to attribute to him full deity: it is a direct, one-word way of declaring that ‘in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell’ (Col 1:19). Having made ‘purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high’ (Heb 1:3), invested with complete authority in heaven and on earth (Matt 28:18).

In the present cultural moment, no value stands higher than self-autonomy. Self-focus and self-rule are the reigning watchwords. Yet the confession that Jesus is Lord requires two distinct affirmations: first, there is a Lord — one who rules, judges, and saves; second, Jesus Christ is this Lord. Together, these affirmations restore the vertical, God-ward dimension to human self-understanding.

‘The simple formula, ‘Jesus is Lord’ carries a heavy payload. Aside from his earthly career, death, resurrection, ascension, and coming again, we have a king on the throne in heaven, who is building a community which will one day possess the universe. He is also directing a world-wide mission, pouring out his Spirit, restraining enemies, interceding for and protecting his people, maintaining the lives of countless others, governing the nations, and driving all history to its appointed goal.’⁴Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom, 233.

(3) Christ, Messiah, and King

Vital to the Christian confession is the recognition that Jesus is the Christ — the Messiah and King promised in the Scriptures. ‘The route by which Jesus came to be known as Lord was via the confession that he is “the Christ,” that is, the promised Messiah’⁵Peter Jensen, ‘God and the Bible,’ in D. A. Carson ed., The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scripture (Apollos, 2016), 482 (Mark 8:29; Acts 17:2-3). The term ‘Christ’ means ‘anointed one.’ Its origins lie in the Old Testament practice of anointing Israel’s kings with oil as a sign of their divine appointment (1 Sam 10:1; 16:13). ‘Christ’ specifies ‘the divinely anointed human being who fulfils the offices of prophet, priest, and king.’⁶The Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 42; in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, Volume 3 (Baker, 1931/1985). The word ‘Christ’ appears 531 times in the New Testament. Peter’s ground-breaking confession — ‘You are the Christ’ (Mark 8:29) — stands as a pivotal moment of recognition. Yet Jesus redefined the role of the Messiah to include suffering, death, and resurrection. The anointed King would achieve victory not through immediate political conquest, but through sacrificial obedience and redemptive suffering. And the scope of his Messiahship extends beyond Israel to encompass all nations. The charge brought against Paul — that he was ‘saying that there is another king, Jesus’ (Acts 17:7) — lays bare the inherently subversive nature of this confession. To confess Jesus as the Christ is to acknowledge him as the divinely appointed Saviour-King whose reign extends over all nations and whose authority calls for both faith and allegiance.

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• 1
  Daniel Treier, Lord Jesus Christ (Zondervan, 2023), 45.
• 2
  Peter Jensen, ‘Revelation,’ Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Second Edition(Baker, 2017), 747.
• 3
  David Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom (Whitefield Publications, 2016), 92.
• 4
  Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom, 233.
• 5
  Peter Jensen, ‘God and the Bible,’ in D. A. Carson ed., The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scripture (Apollos, 2016), 482
• 6
  The Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 42; in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, Volume 3 (Baker, 1931/1985).