Apostles’ Creed (Part 6): I Believe In Jesus Christ

by on March 11, 2025 | Comment

“What’s in a name?” A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. So, we might easily assume that what we name something is unimportant. And yet, there seems to be some sort of natural affinity in most ears for the sound of smooth-running languages like French over the harsh syllables in something like German. Even if it smelled the same, a rose might not be as appealing if we called it an “icky” rather than a rose. Maybe there is something in a name after all.

We might take the name Jesus Christ for granted. We speak of him often and so hear his name constantly. The name Jesus Christ might start to sound like just another pair of words. I wonder if we take time to ponder why it is so important that his name is Jesus Christ. After all, in Matthew 1:21, God himself spoke through an angel to Joseph saying, “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.”

God himself picked out Christ’s name. Although he leaves most of us to name our children without the help of special revelation, he was specific about the name his own natural Son should have when he came to earth in our nature. His name had to be Jesus. Why? Well, Matthew finishes with the reason the angel gave: “because he will save his people from their sins.”

Now, you may or may not know that the name Jesus is just the Greek version of the Hebrew name Joshua. The name Joshua is built from two words, yasa, meaning “he saves,” and yah, the abbreviated version of “Yahweh.” Joshua means “God saves.” Jesus’ name is “God saves.” His very name tells of his work. This essay’s main point in exploring the Apostles’ Creed’s article, “I believe in Jesus Christ,” is that we believe in Jesus Christ because he is God saving his people.

His Story

The confession, “I believe in Jesus Christ,” as part of the Creed’s summary of the whole Bible gets us right to the heart of how we believe the triune God is the true God and Lord over all history. This confession about Jesus is both a statement of belief in the person Jesus Christ and a statement about what governs and fulfills history itself. Saying that we believe in Jesus Christ means that we believe history is his story.

God is the Maker of heaven and earth, who created the universe as the theatre of his glory. We were formed to have eyes for seeing God’s majestic work, ears for hearing his Word to us, hearts to love him truly, and hands to love our neighbor as we expanded Eden across the globe. But we sinned against God, throwing the universe into disorder. The Bible tells the story of how God promises to rescue us from the mess we made, from the penalty of our transgression, and from the enslaving grip of our own spirit of rebellion.

At the heart of that story is the promise that God will act. God brought Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees and promised him a dwelling place and countless descendants. There was an expectation that began growing from the point when God covenanted with Abraham, fusing history with the electric charge of expectation. In Exodus 2:24, God remembered his covenant with Abraham, acting to bring Israel out of Egypt, forging the nation of Israel as his covenanted people. Would God bless the nations through this nation?

They wanted a king to be like the nations, which failed. When it failed, God gave them David. As good as David was, he was not fully righteous. He would not reign forever or secure everlasting peace for God’s people. So, God promised that David would have an heir who would reign forever. Israel’s anticipation would grow, looking for this king like watchmen for the dawn.

The prophets declared the coming day of the Lord. As the nation suffered under hardship and exile, the people looked for restoration. God repeated his promise that he would act. The day of the Lord would come when he would free his people and give them rest and peace in the land. Again, the people would watch the horizon of history for the true God to act.

The fullness of time arrived when God sent forth his Son. Long had the people looked for salvation to come from the hands of God himself. In Jesus Christ, God came to save. The promise of history had been that God would save his people. The forward motion of world events since the fall has been driven by the engine of God’s ordained end of all things—that he would save his people.

The story of the ages then is that God is the rescuer of those who belong to him. As we look down the channels of history, we see time catapulting forward as God covenants throughout biblical records to advance his purposes toward their ultimate climax. By the end of the Old Testament, the eyes of our hearts ought to be peeled wide open with expectation to know how God will bring about his ultimate victory and save his people.

That story has no ending if Jesus Christ is not God the Son come in our flesh. The narrative fizzles at the close of Malachi if Jesus Christ is not God come to rescue his people. Hence, in Colossians 1:24–26, Paul explained that he was a minister of the church by God’s appointment to make God’s Word fully known: “the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (emphasis added). History’s underlying current, which was a mystery because we could not see it though God knew it was there, was the reality of Christ as Savior. The whole New Testament was written to substantiate the Christian claim that Jesus Christ is the appointed Savior from the true God.1 The fulness of time has come and mystery has resolved into clarity because Jesus came and showed that God saves his people, including all believers from any nation.

So, the claim that I believe in Jesus Christ is the capstone plot point of the story about God’s sovereignty over history. It is the affirmation that God said he would save his people, and God has, because Jesus means, “God saves.” In Jesus, the promise of God’s salvation transitioned from ethereal expectation to the concrete reality. Salvation has happened. God has done it. His story has reached its zenith.

His Station

We have thought a lot just about the name Jesus. He is also called Christ. If much is in a name, what does it mean to call God the Son “Christ”? Westminster Larger Catechism 41–42 helps us:

Q 41. Why was our mediator called Jesus?
A. Our mediator was called Jesus, because he saves his people from their sins.
Q 42: Why was our mediator called Christ?
A. Our mediator was called Christ, because He was anointed with the Holy Ghost above measure; and so set apart, and fully furnished with all authority and ability, to execute the offices of prophet, priest, and king of his church, in the estate both of his humiliation and exaltation.

We might mistakenly think that “Christ” is Jesus’ last name, like Jones, or Smith, or Patel. Christ is not his name but his title.

The Greek word Christ translates the Hebrew word Messiah. So, to say I believe in Jesus Christ is to say I believe in Jesus Messiah. Both words mean “anointed.” It means designated to an official role. Heidelberg Catechism 31 asked, “Why is He called Christ, that is, anointed?” It answers:

Because He is ordained with the Holy Ghost, to be our chief prophet and teacher, who has fully revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption; and to be our only High Priest, who by the one sacrifice of his body, has redeemed us, and makes continual intercession with the Father for us; and also to be our eternal King, who governs us by His word and Spirit, and who defends and preserves us in the enjoyment of that salvation he has purchased for us.

So, Jesus is the Christ because he is appointed to fulfill certain tasks.

He was commissioned to act as prophet, priest, and king. Think of Hebrews 5:1, 4–5:

For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. . . . And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.”

Jesus’ office as priest was a divine calling. The same is true of his prophetic office and his kingship. The Father anointed him with the Holy Spirit to mark him as the culminating prophet. In these last days, God has spoken in his Son. The fullness of God’s saving plan is made known in Jesus because in Jesus God saves.

In Luke 22:29, Jesus said, “And I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom.” The Father will give the nations to the Son as his inheritance. And the Son has brought us into his kingdom as coheirs to reign with him by saving us. As priest, Christ reigns in grace by being the sacrifice that cleanses his citizens to ready them for heavenly glory. For Jesus, his station—his office—is to be the Christ, to be our mediator, to fulfill everything needed for our salvation.2

His Stance

Jesus’ stance concerning his people is our great source of hope. Jesus’ name itself is an announcement of the gospel. Jesus’ name itself contains a promise: “God saves.”3 Jesus manifests the fulfillment of all that the Old Testament Scripture had told us to expect that God would do.

Jesus is the gospel, he is the good news because he came to complete the story of God saving his people. Jesus is the good news because his death forgives our sin. Jesus is the good news because his perfectly righteous life secures our place in everlasting life. Jesus is the good news because his stance in heaven today is to intercede for all his people as we need help to come from the throne of grace. He is the Christ anointed to protect us, even from ourselves. He is Jesus because he is God who saves us. Take or leave the name of a rose. But the name of Jesus is on its own sweeter than any other because to say I believe in Jesus is to be reminded that God is our Savior.

Notes

  1. J. I. Packer, Affirming the Apostles’ Creed (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 59.
  2. Casper Olevianus, An Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, trans. Lyle D. Bierma, Classics of Reformed Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2009), 59.
  3. Olevianus, Exposition, 54.

©Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

You can find the whole series here.

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