Will Jesus Always Be Called ‘Jesus?’ (Questions Teenagers Ask 3.)

Part three of my series on Questions Teenagers Ask. All posts in this series are responses to questions I’ve had from young people written in the style I answered them.

Question: Will Jesus Always Be Called Jesus? What About At The Second Coming?

Answer: Yea, I think so.

Names in the Bible are hyper-important. They usually tell us something worth remembering about the person. Naomi changed her name to ‘Mara’ (meaning ‘bitter’) after she lost her husband and sons. Saul was called ‘Paul’ (meaning ‘small’ or ‘humble’) when he came into the freakishly big presence of the risen Jesus. Jesus’ name also means something pretty significant.

The name ‘Jesus’ is actually a wee bit weird as it’s a compound of two Hebrew words stuck together. It’s the word for Lord and the verb for save or deliver. So it means something like ‘the Lord delivers’ or ‘the Lord saves.’ Makes sense really when you think about it.

When Jesus returns He’s still going to be the Lord, the Saviour, and the Deliverer. In fact he’ll be doing those things by returning and putting an end to all the evil in the world. So it makes sense that He would keep His name as it is.

Also, in Revelation 1, the second coming dude is actually called Jesus. So that kinda clinches it I guess.

A wee bit more food-for-thought:

In the same Revelation 1 passage (verse 7) it says ‘Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him.’ What’s really important about this is it basically says no one will miss the second coming! Jesus isn’t coming back as a baby for some to see and even less to believe in. He’s coming back with noise, and trumpets, and angels, and rock n’ roll. He’ll be ripping holes in the sky and bringing a whopping great city with Him.

So yup. I think Jesus will still be called Jesus (although He will have other names too like Lord, King, God, Holy One, Legend… etc.), but even if He didn’t we wouldn’t miss Him coming!