No Other Name!

Jesus Christ fulfills God’s promise to bless all nations through His Covenant with Abraham. There is salvation in No Other Name.

Foundational to the biblical doctrine of redemption is the Covenant that God made with Abraham, and with his “seed” after him, including the promises to bless all nations and to grant the Patriarch innumerable descendants. But how and when are the nations blessed? And who is Abaham’s “seed” destined to inherit the promises?

Jesus Christ is the promised “seed” along with his New Covenant community, namely, his Church, the “Assembly.” The Abrahamic Covenant was part of God’s redemptive plan, the beginning rather than the end of the process. The initial focus on Abraham’s immediate biological descendants was an early stage in the redemption of humanity.

[Jesus - Photo by Matt Botsford on Unsplash]

The Covenant envisaged a glorious future beyond the confines of national Israel or the small territory of Canaan, a promise that will find its fulfillment in the New Creation and the redemption of the nations - (Genesis 12:1-3, 15:4-6, 17:1-8).

For example, in the Book of Revelation, John saw an “innumerable multitude” of men purchased from every nation by the “blood of the Lamb.” They were standing in worship before the “Lamb” in the Holy City of “New Jerusalem” - (Revelation 7:9-17).

During his ministry, Jesus limited the activities of his disciples to the “lost sheep of Israel.” However, he foresaw the inclusion of the “nations,” and this is demonstrated by the application of the Messianic prophecy of the Book of Isaiah to the commencement of his ministry in Galilee:

• “The land of Zebulon and Naphtali, by way of the Sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people sitting in darkness have seen a Great Light” - (Matthew 4:12-17).

God anointed Israel’s Messiah to reign over the nations of the Earth “on the Throne of David.”  He is the ‘Servant of the LORD’ who will “declare judgment to the nations <…> and in his name, the nations will trust” - (Matthew 12:18-22, Mark 3:6-7, Isaiah 42:1-4).

Jesus commanded his disciples to announce the Good News of Salvation and God’s Kingdom to “all the nations,” a mission that must be completed before his “arrival on the clouds of Heaven.” The salvation of the “nations” is pivotal to the redemption of humanity, indeed, of Creation itself - (Matthew 24:14, 28:18-20):

• “For the earnest expectation of the creation is waiting for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by him who subjected it, in hope, that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God” - (Romans 8:17-23).

Likewise, Jesus commissioned his followers to be “witnesses for me both in Jerusalem and all Judea and in Samaria and unto the end of the earth.” This last clause alludes to the prophecy of the ‘Servant of Yahweh’ from the Book of Isaiah:

• “I will also give you for a light to the nations that you may be my salvation unto the end of the earth”- (Isaiah 49:6, Acts 1:7-9).

The global nature of our mission is stressed in the climax of Peter’s first sermon on the Day of Pentecost when he combined verbal allusions from the books of Isaiah and Joel:

• “For to you is the promise, to your children and to all that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call to him” – (Acts 2:33-39).

The term “promise” in the preceding passage is in the singular number, and in this literary context, it refers to the promise of the Gift of the Holy Spirit. The phrase, “To all that are far off,” is another allusion to the prophecy from Isaiah:

• “Hear, O isles, unto me; and hearken, you peoples from far; Yahweh has called me from the womb <…> I will also give you as a light to the nations that you may be my salvation unto the end of the earth” - (Isaiah 49:1-6).

In the Book of Acts, Peter prayed for the lame man at the entrance to the Temple, declaring that “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” healed him in the name of “His Servant,” and Peter invoked the Abrahamic Covenant:

• All the “prophets from Samuel and them that followed after, as many as have spoken, told of these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, and in your seed will all the clans of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised his Servant, sent him to bless you by turning away every one of you from your iniquities” - (Acts 3:25).

Peter linked Christ’s ministry to God’s promise to bless all the nations in Abraham’s seed and to the suffering ‘Servant of the LORD.’ His words anticipated the broadening of the Covenant Community to include the Gentiles by declaring that God had blessed the Jewish nation “first.”

When the priestly authorities from the Jerusalem Temple questioned Peter and John about their preaching and the healing of the lame man, Peter responded:

• “You rulers of the people, and elders, if we this day are examined concerning a good deed done to an impotent man, by what means this man is made whole; be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even in him does this man stand here before you whole. He is the stone which was set at nought of you the builders, which was made the head of the corner. And in no other is there salvation, for neither is there any other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved!” – (Acts 4:8-12).

Peter became instrumental in opening the Gospel to the Gentiles, beginning at the House of Cornelius in Caesarea. Before his vision at the start of Chapter 10, he understood that it was unlawful “for a man that is a Jew to join himself or come into one of another nation,” yet God showed him that he must “not call any man common or unclean” – (Acts 10:9-16).

PREACHING TO THE NATIONS

As Peter affirmed to Cornelius and those with him, the Creator of all things accepts men “in every nation that fear him and work righteousness”; therefore, the Apostle preached the same message to his Gentile audience that he proclaimed to the Jews - (Acts 10:19-48).

The Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles, and they began to speak in tongues. This amazed the Jews since uncircumcised Gentiles had received the very same Gift as the Jewish believers did on the Day of Pentecost. After hearing about these events, the brethren in Jerusalem “glorified God, because to the nations also He had granted repentance for life” – (Acts 2:1-4).

Later, in Jerusalem, James declared that the Gentiles were not required to undergo circumcision “to be saved” since God had “visited the nations to take out of them a people for his name.” James justified this by citing the prophet Amos:

• “To this agree the words of the prophets… After these things, I will return, and I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen; and I will build again its ruins, and I will set it up, that the remnant of men may seek after the Lord and all the nations upon whom my name is called” - (Acts 15:14-17, Amos 9:11-12).

The Book of Acts ends with the Apostle Paul in Rome “proclaiming the Kingdom of God” to all who would hear, to Jews and Gentiles alike - (Isaiah 52:10, Acts 28:26-31).

In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul is explicit. The followers of Jesus are the “children of Abraham.” God’s plan was always to justify the Gentiles through faith. As He promised the Patriarch, “In you will all nations be blessed.”

Men who stand on faith are “blessed with faithful Abraham.” Jesus is the “seed of Abraham” in whom the nations are blessed, and with whom they become “joint heirs” of the covenant promises – (Genesis 12:3, Galatians 3:7-9, 3:14, Ephesians 2:11-19).

Finally, the Book of Revelation foresaw the “Holy City, New Jerusalem” inhabited by a multitude so vast no man could number it. It consisted of men and women redeemed from “every nation” by Jesus Christ. The nations and the “kings of the earth” will honor the Lamb and God in “New Jerusalem.” This will be the ultimate fulfillment of the promise to “bless all the nations” in Abraham – (Revelation 21:24).

Because of his sacrificial death, the Cosmos declared that Jesus is worthy to receive all authority and to reign over all things because he “purchased for God by his blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation” in fulfillment of God’s promise to bring salvation to the Gentiles - (“I will give you for a light to the nations that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth” - Isaiah 49:6, Revelation 5:5-14).

Through his Death and Resurrection, Jesus achieved the salvation now offered to the nations in fulfillment of the promise to bless all nations in the Patriarch, Abraham – “There is no other name under heaven by which we may be saved!” - (Acts 4:12).

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SEE ALSO:

• Abraham, Heir of the World - (The faith of uncircumcised Abraham provides an example for Jewish and Gentile believers who live from the faith of Jesus – Romans 4:11-17)

• Salvation of Yahweh - (Jesus means ‘Yahweh saves.’ In the man from Nazareth, the Salvation promised by the God of Israel has arrived in all its glory)

• Salvation for All! - (The Good News announced by Jesus of Nazareth offers salvation and life to men and women of every nation and people)

• The Beginning of the Good News - (The promised Kingdom of God arrived in the ministry of Jesus the Messiah, commencing with his baptism – Mark 1:1-3)