“You shall call his name Jesus because He shall save His people from their sins.’ Jesus is the New Testament name for the Old Testament Hebrew name Yeshua (Joshua) meaning “Jehovah (or Yahweh) saves”. This is the name by which God identified Himself to Moses. (Exodus 3) It translates as “I am who I am.” --the Existent One, past, present and future, the pure essence of true being. Jesus called Himself by that name when He told the Jews, “Before Abraham was born, ‘I am’”. (John 8:54) They knew He was identifying Himself with this sacred name of God, which they considered blasphemy. Jesus was not therefore simply named for Jehovah, He claimed to be Jehovah Himself. Jesus of the New Testament is declared to be Jehovah, or Yahweh, of the Old.
The prophet Isaiah had foretold a virgin birth of a child whose name would be “Immanuel” which means “God with us”. Jesus is this God. He is Jehovah, the “I am who I am”. Devout Israelites regarded this name too sacred to pronounce. It was written as YHWH, with no vowels, for which the word “Adonai,” which simply means Lord, was substituted. Where you see LORD written in capital letters in the Bible, it is the name Jehovah. “The LORD is my shepherd” (Psalm 23) is fulfilled in Jesus words “I am the Good Shepherd.” Here alone He was claiming to be Jehovah, who was the Good Shepherd. He also claimed “I am the Light of the world,” “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” “the Door,” “the Bread of Life,” and “the Savior”--all can be identified with God.
At the annunciation of His birth, what we call the Trinity was in attendance. The Angel said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High (the Father) will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35) The Spirit, the Father and the Son--a complex or composite unity was foretold in the Hebrew words of the Old Testament: “Here, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) God was one, but it was not an absolute unity but a compound unity described by the word echad in the Hebrew which is translated “one”. It is the same word used in “the two shall be one flesh,” and “The dreams of Pharaoh (two of them) are one.” (Genesis 41:25) The word echad describes any group who are one together. Few truly understood this until Jesus was revealed as the Second Person of a Trinity. Then one God in three Persons is declared throughout the entire New Testament. Christians did not invent the Trinity; God revealed His own composite unity to us. This happened on the first Christmas.
When Jesus was born, He was wrapped in strips of cloth, like the material used to wrap the dead, and laid in the manger. It was foretold by this symbol that He had come into the world to die, to give His life a ransom for many. His purpose was to be the sacrificial lamb of God, so “we cannot separate the cradle from the cross.” A very early Christian hymn quoted by the Apostle Paul (Philippians 2:6-11) says about Jesus’ birth as a man, “Who being in very nature God, He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped (held on to), but made Himself nothing (emptied Himself of His divine attributes). Being made in human likeness, he took the very form of a servant. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place . . ” Jesus’ final commitment to this death in His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, not my will but Thine be done” was an expression of pure righteousness, which simply means always doing God’s will and not our own. Jesus never disobeyed or went His own way, which means he never sinned. He did not have to pay the wages of sin for Himself, so He paid the wages of sin for us by dying on the cross. In faith He believed in the faithfulness of His Father’s promise to raise Him from the dead (“He will not allow His Holy One to see corruption.” Psalm 16:10). It is by this faith--the faith of Jesus Himself--that we are saved as we respond to this message, which is the Gospel--the good news that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.” This is why He came. This is the purpose of Christmas.
The promise is given to us, “If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is LORD (that He is Jehovah God--the ”I am who I am”), and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, (that He is a living Lord whom we can worship, love and obey) you shall be saved. For it is with your heart (not your head or brain) you believe and are justified (True belief always must translate into obedience and good works. This is not an intellectual assent but a heart commitment.) and it is with your mouth you confess and are saved.” (Romans 10:9-10) As we confess Him and identify with Him that we are His, we are daily being transformed by the Spirit of God into His image. This is holiness or sanctification, which is the present tense of our salvation. “He is (or becomes) our wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification (holiness) and redemption.”
The idea that Jesus was the Christ, or the Son of God, offended most of his contemporaries. John 1:12-13 explains it. “He came to His own (creation), and His own (people) received him not.” In every way that Jesus offered Himself--Savior, Good Shepherd, Light of the World, the Bread of Life, the Door, the Way, the Truth and the Life”--most rejected Him. “Yet to all who received Him, He (God the Father) gave the privilege (the authority) to become the children of God, even to those who believe (trust) in His name.” --to those who believe that He is God, Jehovah, the LORD, the ‘I am that I am,” or God the Son. These believers are promised a new eternal life. It is God’s own life. They are “born again” and receive God’s Spirit. “Who were born not by the flesh, nor by human decision, nor by the will of any man, but of God.” Jesus said it! “Except a man is born again, he cannot see (understand or experience) the Kingdom of God.” Jesus came to create a new family for all who will receive Him as God the Savior. He made the sacrifice for our sins and rose again to declare that we are under His protection, clothed in His righteousness. This is the provision, the purpose, and the meaning of Christmas.