Now the Name of which Peter is speaking is not the collocation of
syllables which are sounded 'Jesus Christ.' His hearers were familiar
with the ancient and Eastern method of regarding names as very much
more than distinguishing labels. They are, in the view of the Old
Testament, attempts at a summary description of things by their
prominent characteristics. They are condensed definitions. And so the
Old Testament uses the expression, the 'Name' of God, as equivalent to
'that which God is manifested to be.' Hence, in later days--and there
are some tendencies thither even in Scripture--in Jewish literature
'the Name' came to be a reverential synonym for God Himself. And there
are traces that this peculiar usage with regard to the divine Name was
beginning to shape itself in the Church with reference to the name of
Jesus, even at that period in which my text was spoken. For instance,
in the fifth chapter we read that the Apostles 'departed from the
council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the
Name,' and we find at a much later date that missionaries of the Gospel
are described by the Apostle John as going forth 'for the sake of the
Name.'
The name of Christ, then, is the representation or embodiment of that
which Christ is declared to be for us men, and it is that Name, the
totality of what He is manifested to be, in which lies all power for
healing and for strengthening. The Name, that is, the whole Christ, in
His nature, His offices, His work, His Incarnation, His Life, His
Death, Resurrection, Session at the right hand of God--it is this
Christ whose Name made that man strong, and will make us strong.
Brethren, let us remember that, while fragments of the Name will have
fragmentary power, as the curative virtue that resides in any substance
belongs to the smallest grain of it, if detached from the mass--whilst
fragments of the Name of Christ have power, thanks be to Him! so that
no man can have even a very imperfect and rudimentary view of what
Jesus Christ is and does, without getting strength and healing in
proportion to the completeness of his conception, yet in order to
realise all that He can be and do, a man must take the whole Christ as
He is revealed.
The Early Church had a symbol for Jesus Christ, a fish, to which they
were led because the Greek word for a fish is made up of the initials
of the words which they conceived to be the Name. And what was it?
'_Jesus Christ_, _God's Son_, _Saviour_'; _Jesus_, humanity; _Christ_,
the apex of Revelation, the fulfilment of prophecy, the Anointed
Prophet, Priest, and King; _Son of God_, the divine nature: and all
these, the humanity, the Messiahship, the divinity, found their sphere
of activity in the last name, which, without them, would in its fulness
have been impossible--_Saviour_. He is not such a Saviour as He may be
to each of us, unless our conception of the Name grasps these three
truths: His humanity, His Messiahship, His divinity. 'His Name has made
this man strong.'