Theopedia

Titles of Jesus

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.”

— Philippians 2:9 (ESV)

Definition

Scripture calls Jesus Christ by many names and titles, and each one discloses something of his nature, his office, or the work he came to do rather than serving as a bare label.1 His own personal and official names, Jesus and Christ, sit alongside titles for his humanity and deity (Son of Man, Son of God, Lord) and titles for his saving office as Mediator between God and man.1

Confessional Witness

The 1689 London Baptist Confession has no chapter devoted to Christ’s titles as such, but its own chapter on Christ names a cluster of them at once, in wording it shares with the Westminster Confession and the Savoy Declaration before it:2

“It pleased God, in His eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten Son, according to the covenant made between them both, to be the mediator between God and man; the prophet, priest, and king; head and saviour of the church, the heir of all things, and judge of the world.”3

Each title marks a distinct part of that mediatorial work: prophet in revealing God’s will, priest in making atonement, and king in ruling his people (see Threefold Office of Christ), alongside his headship over the church, his inheritance of all things, and his coming role as judge of the world.

Biblical Basis

Jesus and Christ

Jesus, the personal name given at his birth (Matt. 1:21), is most commonly traced to a Hebrew root meaning “to save,” matching the angel’s own explanation of the name to Joseph.1 “If Jesus is the personal, Christ is the official, name of the Messiah,” Berkhof writes: Christ is the New Testament’s rendering of the Old Testament’s Mashiach, or Messiah, “the anointed one,” the title Israel gave its anointed kings, priests, and the occasional anointed prophet.1 Within the New Testament itself the title shifted toward a proper name: “the name ‘Christ’ was first applied to the Lord as a common noun with the article, but gradually developed into a proper noun, and was used without the article.”1

Son of Man

Son of Man, drawn from Daniel’s vision of a heavenly figure given “dominion and glory and a kingdom” (Dan. 7:13-14), was Jesus’ own most frequent self-designation: he applied it to himself on more than forty occasions, while almost no one else in the Gospels calls him by it.4

Son of God

Son of God carries at least four senses in Scripture that are not always kept distinct. It names Christ’s Messianic office, as God’s heir and representative (Matt. 24:36); his eternal, trinitarian deity (Matt. 16:16; Rom. 1:3); his supernatural conception by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35); and, more remotely, the same adoptive sense in which believers themselves are called God’s children.5

Lord

Lord (Greek kurios) translates the Old Testament’s covenant name for God as well as the honorific Adonai, and the New Testament applies it to Christ across the same range: as ordinary polite address (Matt. 8:2), as plain ownership and authority (Matt. 21:3), and, especially after his resurrection, in its highest sense, functionally equivalent to the name “God” (Mark 12:36-37; Acts 2:36; 1 Cor. 12:3; Phil. 2:11).6 Paul can tell his readers that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord… you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9), an authority Berkhof traces to Christ’s own antecedently acquired rights as the risen and exalted Son, not merely to a title of respect.6

Titles of his mediatorial office

A further cluster of titles names Christ’s work as Mediator rather than his person alone. Pictet lists them together:

“Immanuel, i.e. God with us, (Matt. 1:23,) the Servant of the Lord, the Son of Man, the Angel of the Covenant, the Captain of our Salvation, the Author and Finisher of our faith, the Surety of the New Testament, and the Mediator” (Isa. 53:11; Dan. 7:13; Mal. 3:1; Heb. 2:10; 12:2; 7:22; 1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24).7

Gill likewise treats “Immanuel, God with us” as evidence of Christ’s proper deity, alongside further divine characters Scripture gives him such as “the mighty God” (Isa. 9:6).8

Pictet grounds these titles in three roles a mediator’s work requires. Christ is “the messenger or interpreter between God and us,” declaring God’s will to mankind, which is why Scripture calls him “the angel of the covenant” and “the counsellor.”9 He is also “our intercessor and advocate, who pleads our cause before God,” and “our Surety and Redeemer, who by his own blood obtained for us peace with God.”9 In all three characters, Pictet concludes, Christ is our Mediator.9

Additional titles in Scripture

Scripture applies still other titles to Christ, each naming some further aspect of his person or work:

  • The Word (John 1:1)
  • “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6)
  • “Leader and Savior” (Acts 5:31)
  • “Redeemer” (Isa. 49:26)
  • “The Deliverer” (Rom. 11:26)
  • “The Light of the World” (John 8:12)
  • “The Bread of Life” (John 6:35, 48)
  • “The Door of the Sheep” (John 10:7)
  • “The Good Shepherd” (John 10:11)
  • “The Way, and the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6)
  • “The Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24)
  • “The Author of life” (Acts 3:15)
  • “The Lamb of God” (John 1:36)
  • “High priest” (Heb. 6:20)
  • “The advocate” (1 John 2:1)
  • “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 19:16)
  • “The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David” (Rev. 5:5)
  • “The Alpha and the Omega” (Rev. 21:6)
  • “The first-born of all creation” (Col. 1:15)

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1969), 296: “There are especially five names that call for a brief discussion at this point. They are partly descriptive of His natures, partly of His official position, and partly of the work for which He came into the world.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  2. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chap. 8, “Of Christ the Mediator,” para. 1; The Savoy Declaration (1658), chap. 8, “Of Christ the Mediator,” para. 1. ↩

  3. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), chap. 8, “Of Christ the Mediator,” para. 1. ↩

  4. Berkhof, 297. ↩

  5. Berkhof, 298. ↩

  6. Berkhof, 299. ↩ ↩2

  7. Benedict Pictet, Christian Theology, trans. Frederick Reyroux (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1845), 268. ↩

  8. John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal Divinity; or, A System of Evangelical Truths, Deduced from the Sacred Scriptures, 2 vols. (London: Printed for the Author, and Sold by George Keith, 1769), book I, chap. 30, “Of the Distinct Personality and Deity of the Son”: “Immanuel, God with us, God in our nature, that is, God manifest in the flesh… Some additional characters are given of Christ, when he is called God; which show him to be truly and properly God.” ↩

  9. Pictet, 269. ↩ ↩2 ↩3