What's in a Name: I Get It!

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

̶ 1 John 5:13

Years ago a high school friend of mine tried to convince me of the deity of Christ. He knew I was in a cult that I perceived as genuinely Christian. This cult, at that time called The Way International, did not believe in the deity of Christ. While I believe I was already saved at that point, I was not grounded in Christian doctrine nor connected to any church, so I was vulnerable to the lies of the world about Jesus. My friend Jim (not his real name), greatly desired for me to break through these lies and into an understanding of Christ’s deity. He used the book of First John as his text. Throughout this text Christ is referred to as the Son, not as God. He would say to me, “See, He’s God’s Son, so that makes Him God.”

“Well,” I began, “I’m Marv’s son as well, but that doesn't make me Marv.”

And on our debate went. He couldn't explain the deity any better than the previous example.

I Get It

Since those days, I have come to see my error and now know that Jesus was indeed God in the flesh. My flagship Scripture is:

“And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was.”

─Jesus, John 17:5

This John 17 verse drips with pre-existence and deity, but that’s another blog. Suffice it to say that I believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. So where am I going with this?

Go back and quickly review the opening verse. A key to understanding the deity of Christ in 1 John is to understand the phrase “in the name of.” The Greek word for name means, well, name, but it also means reputation. So the meaning in 1 John is, I believe, both/and: It is encouraging us to believe in both the name and reputation of Christ.

In the Name

Think about that for a moment. The word Christ means messiah. Jesus was called the Christ, the Messiah (Matthew 1:16). He was also called Immanuel which means God with us (Matthew 1:23, Isaiah 7:14).  Jesus’s name means, at least in part, Messiah—God with us. So to the point of 1 John, to believe in the name of Christ, is to believe all the way into understanding and accepting that He was the Messiah and was God with us.

So while Jim didn’t understand the depth of the detail of 1 John as has been briefly explained here, he at least kept me thinking about the deity of Christ throughout my lifetime until I finally arrived at accepting it for myself.  Thank you, Jim!

What about you? Do you believe the deity of Christ? Or have you bought the lie of our secular culture and of many cults that He was nothing more than a great man?