The Divine Name
God does not share his name with creatures. “I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other” (Isa 42:8). There is no god besides YHWH (Isa 45:21–22). And yet, according to Philippians 2:10, God has highly exalted his obedient Son Jesus at his right hand as the one who bears the divine name. In addition to Phil 2:10, there are numerous New Testament passages which demonstrate that Jesus, in his exalted state, is viewed as bearing the divine name, YHWH in Hebrew or Kyrios in Greek.35 For example, Joel 2:32 (“Everyone calls upon the name of YHWH will be saved”) is quoted twice in the New Testament in its Septuagint form, where YHWH has been rendered Kyrios, now applied to the exalted Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 2:21; Rom 10:13). The fact that the New Testament interprets Old Testament Kyrios texts like Isa 45:23 and Joel 2:32 as fulfilled in the exaltation of Jesus to the status of universal Lord indicates that he bears the divine name and thus participates in the identity of YHWH.36
Does this mean that Jesus is YHWH? I hesitate to say that Jesus is YHWH, which would seem to verge on modalism. Rather, I would say that, by virtue both of his ontological status and of his exaltation, Jesus bears the divine name and is thus shown to be included in the identity of YHWH.37 If “YHWH” denotes the person who reveals himself in the Old Testament as the God of Israel, it is best to say Jesus is the Son of YHWH. Because he is his eternal Son, he shares in the identity or nature of the God of Israel.
“YHWH” is basically the name of the Father, but it is a name (unlike the name “Father”) that the Father can share with his exalted Son (Phil 2:9–10). This is because the name YHWH itself does not mean “Father” but “I am who I am” (Exod 3:14). It does not differentiate his personal quality but his essential nature. The granting of the divine name, YHWH, to the Son is legitimate, appropriate, and fitting because the Son shares the Father’s ontological divine nature. Thus, when the Son is exalted, he receives the divine name, YHWH, because it is fitting in terms of his ontological status. His receiving the divine name shows that he shares in the identity of YHWH.
The same situation obtains with respect to the name “God” (ho theos). I hesitate to say “Jesus is God,” nor would I say “Jesus is not God.” Instead, I prefer to say, as the New Testament says, that “Jesus is the Son of God.” Although it is possible to construe it in a valid sense, I am cautious about the statement “Jesus is God,” because the name “God” (with the definite article, ho theos) most frequently and properly refers to the Father. “Jesus is God” could be taken to mean “Jesus is the Father,” which would be modalism. On the other hand, following John 1:1, we have strong precedent for saying that “Jesus is divine” (theos as anarthrous qualitative predicate nominative).38
Words express meaning not by reference alone, but by sense and reference.39 A word’s sense is not the same thing as the extralinguistic reality that it refers to. The words “YHWH” and ho theos are typically used in Scripture to refer to the Father, and very rarely if at all to refer to the Son. Yet, because their sense is such that they indicate deity as a generic concept, the terms can be applied to the Son because of his deity. Yet when the words are applied to the Son, there is usually something in the context which distinguishes him from the Father and which shows that the terms are being used qualitatively to underscore that they share the same identity or nature.
A Divine Savior
Why is it important that Jesus be the divine Son of God? The reason, in a nutshell, is that the accomplishment of redemption depends on it. The Bible teaches that there is only one God, YHWH, the God of Israel, and that this one God has a Son through whom he created all things and through whom he redeems. Redemption is patterned on creation. Just as creation is the work of God the Father through the preincarnate Son, so redemption is the work of God the Father through the incarnate Son. Earlier, I quoted 1 Cor 8:6 as one of the crucial New Testament passages which affirm that Christ is the divine intermediary of creation. But its final line affirms that Christ is also the intermediary of the new creation: “and we [believers live] through him.”40 Christ’s mediatorial role in creation prepares the way for and is the basis of his mediatorial role in redemption. It is no accident that redemption is pictured as a new creation (e.g., 2 Cor 5:17; Col 3:10). Just as God created through his divine, preincarnate Son, so God saves his people and brings about the new creation through his divine, incarnate Son, and both mediatorial activities place Jesus on the divine side of the Creator-creature distinction. No wonder he is called “our (great) God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13; 2 Pet 1:1), that is, “our divine Savior Jesus Christ.”
It is not only the objective accomplishment of redemption (new creation) that had to be by a divine person, the divine Son of God incarnate. It is also the subjective response to redemption that requires a divine person to be the object of saving faith. The fact that God has put Christ forward as the object of faith (Rom 3:25) requires that he be ontologically divine. Paul expresses the personal nature of faith in the divine Messiah in these terms: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). We are saved by “calling on the name of the Lord” (Rom 10:13; Joel 2:32). Such absolute trust in Christ, calling upon him for salvation, is a form of worship that should only be given to a divine person, not to a creature no matter how exalted. As Charles Hodge wrote, “The man should tremble, who ventures to say: I believe in Jesus Christ our Saviour, unless he believes in his true and perfect Godhead, for only on that assumption is he a Saviour or an object of faith.”41
In conclusion, it was not the post-apostolic church, in a desire to exalt Jesus more and more, that indulged in unwarranted “exaggeration” about the person of Jesus. It was Jesus himself who claimed to be the Son of God in an absolutely unique way. Indeed, so provocative were his claims, the Jewish leadership recoiled in horror and had him put to death on the charge of blasphemy. But God raised him from the dead and vindicated his claim to be the Son of God. Millions of ordinary Christians throughout history have confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, exalted at God’s right hand as sovereign Lord over all creation, and have put their faith and trust in him as their divine Savior and have worshiped him as such.
1. From his 1838 address to the Harvard Divinity School graduates. Emerson, Nature, 126.
2. Livy, History of Rome, 1.16; 5.24
3. Contra Arius, who said “there was a time when he did not exist” and “before he was brought into being, he did not exist” (as quoted by Athanasius, Against the Arians 1.5 [NPNF2 4.308–9]). See Williams, Arius, 95–116.
4. The three verses in brackets do not actually contain the “Son of God” title.
5. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.
6. R. Brown, Introduction to New Testament Christology, 88–89.