He is Jesus. And what does that name mean to us? It tells us of the love that brought Him from the eternal throne to Bethlehem’s manger; it tells us of a life of suffering-service that led through sorrow and shame and loss to the cross of Calvary; it tells us how His love declared itself there. The waves of death uplifted their awful crests and rolled upon Him to engulf Him; the billows of Satan’s power roared about Him to destroy Him, and He went down beneath the deep waters of God’s judgment against sin on our behalf. But though He stood for us where all the seas met upon Him, yet was His love not quenched (Jn. 13:1). It burned with a fervent flame amid the fierce waters, and shed its wondrous light in the darkness of that awful hour, and there it triumphed, and now the Lord is risen: He lives upon the throne of God for us, and, as the hymn states, “We stand beyond the doom of all our sins through Jesus’ empty tomb.”

His love has not changed one whit: it is as deeply interested in our welfare today as it was when it bore our sins on the tree. Were it otherwise, Jesus would no longer bear that precious name for us, and we should have neither savior, priest, nor home.

But Jesus is the Son of God, for so our text presents Him, and while the name “Jesus” carries us in thought down to the very depths of the humiliation into which His love carried Him, “the Son of God” presents His glory, His magnificent greatness, the unmeasured splendor of His Person and inheritance. “Jesus” tells us of His preciousness to us. “The Son of God” tells us of His preciousness to God.