2. The name Jesus (that is, Joshua) was in the post-exilic times a common Jewish name : Joshua is equivalent to Jehoshua, which means " Jehovah is salvation." In the Septuagint as well
*F. Delitzsch, Old Testament History 0/ Iiedei7i2}tion, 182. • A. Menzies, The Earliest Gospel, 57, i»ote.
14 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
as in the New Testament (as Heb. iv. 8) the name of the patriarch Joshua is written Jesus. " Our Lord did not have an excep- tional name, for He was a man, and, as such, a member of a people, a child of an age and of a country. This name, however, is the most fitting that He could have had. It signifies ' Jehovah is salvation,' and, as the name of the Lord, the bearer and the mediator of salvation. The designation is prepared by such passages as Gen. xlix. 18 ; Isa. xlix. 6, lii. 10, especially in the Book of Isaiah ; even the name of this prophet signifies ' the salvation of Jehovah,' or 'Jehovah saves,' The name Christ united with Jesus, is made a proper name by the omission of the article, as Elohim in the designation Jehovah-Elohim becomes a proper name in the same way."
For us, the Lord is known by a sweeter, tenderer, more human name than Jehovah. For us the Lord is — Jesus. For us the secret is deeper, more wonderful, more unutterable. It is a knowledge more intimate, more immediate, more personal, than was possible for men for whom God was in the heavens beyond the blue. The secret of the Lord for us is that of one who has come very near to us, and has been found in the like- ness of a man. It is the secret of one who has made Himself known to us in the breaking of the bread. What that secret is to each one of us depends on what Jesus is, and has become, to us.
IF St. Francis of Assisi steeps his mind in the Gospels. He is caught and held by the winsome beauty of his Lord. He sees Him, in a fresh vision, going about doing good, and he goes through the villages of Italy, a gracious and tender presence, reminiscent of the compassion of Christ. John Wesley passes through his nights and days of enlightenment and consecration, rises into a new knowledge and an unshakable assurance of Christ's love, and goes out to the almost pagan villages of England with his Master's message of life from the dead. Thomas Chalmers, rising from his sick-bed to spend a year of Elysium as he pulses with a new affection of joy to Christ, goes forth to pour all his roused energy into the evangelisation of Scotland. Father Damien — to take men of all communions — marks Jesus as He touches the leper. He sees the deep significance of the deed, and goes forth to lay his hands in Christlike pity on the outcasts of Molokai.i
» W. M. Clow, The Secret of the Lord, 6.
ST. MARK 15
3. Why is the Gospel called the Gospel of Jesus Christ ?
(1) Because there is good news in what He said. There is a directness, a reality, and a force about His words that set them in a category by themselves. He spake out of His own inner consciousness and experience ; and though some corre- sponding experience is needed to enable us to understand His words, the first judgment passed on them remains good, that "never man spake like this man," Yet the only^ really new things that He can be said to have taught concerned Himself. Such words as " I am the living bread which came down from heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever " ; or " I am the way, the truth, and the life : no man cometh unto the Father, but by me " ; or " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," — were so new and so startling as to be " hard sayings," regarding which even disciples asked, " Who can hear him ? " And they are hard still to many who seem full of admira- tion of the words of grace which proceeded out of His mouth so long as they relate to already known ethical and spiritual truth.
IF As we listen to Him we are conscious always and every- where of matchless elevation. He is far above His countrymen, — far above the wisest wisdom of His time, — far above the wisest wisdom of all succeeding ages of which He has not been directly or indirectly the Author. As we listen to Him we feel that He lives and speaks in an atmosphere to which we can ascend only at rare intervals, and by considerable efforts. As a Teacher, no less than as our Eedeemer and our Lord, He invites the praises of the Church : " Thou only, 0 Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father." And, since He is thus above the level of human thought. His words will live. Time effaces that which belongs only and fundamentally to the mind of man; but here is a teaching which bears on it the imprint of a higher origin and a more commanding standpoint ; the centuries may pass, but it will not pass away.^