The Naming and Circumcision of Our Lord

In Matthew 1:21, the Angel who visited Joseph told him to name his son, Jesus, "She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Because Abraham was given a name with his circumcision, Israel gained the custom of naming their children at the circumcision.  So, when Jesus was eight days old, being the Seed of Abraham, he was given the name Jesus at his circumcision, thus fulfilling the law and the prophecies about him.

Why Circumcision?

Circumcision was a way that God wrote his covenant permanently onto the bodies of his people. Into the very organ which made him as a son, was the sign that he was a son of the Father. Circumcision also showed to man that his flesh was sinful and that every child born from his union with a woman was born in sin, as David confessed in Psalm 51. Bodies matter to God. Today, when baby boys and girls are little, they are “circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with him in baptism, in which they are also raised up with him through faith in the working of God, who raised Jesus from the dead,” (Colossians 2:11-12). No longer is one tiny part of the body cut away, but the liquid blade of baptism cuts away the old sinful nature. For if anyone is in Christ, he is reborn righteous and a new creation. It is no longer we who lives, but Christ who lives in us, and we who live in Christ.

Why the name of Jesus?

Jesus has three offices: prophet, priest, and king. People with equivalent names to Jesus in the Old Testament were a prophet, a priest, and a king, being types for the coming one who would fulfill all three roles perfectly.

In His public ministry Jesus was a prophet urging Israel to repent and being rejected just like the old testament prophets (John 1:11). The Lord Himself affirmed that Hosea was a man of symbol. He instructed the prophet that his wife's desertion of her family for a life of whoredom pictured Israel's unfaithfulness to Jehovah. Just as Hosea bought his wife back from prostitution (Hos. 3:1-3), so Jesus paid the price to redeem His people from bondage to sin.

In His death, after Israel had rejected Him, Jesus was the high priest offering His own body as a sacrifice for sin. Joshua, the Old Testament high priest was shown to be a forshadowing of the great high priest (Zechariah 6:11-13)

When He comes again, Jesus will be the King of kings. Moses couldn't lead the people into the Promised Land, because he struck the rock instead of speaking to it as God commanded, so Joshua took over for him.  Likewise, the beatings of the Law can’t bring us into the Promised Land. The Law that Moses gave can’t bring us into heaven. Against opposition from powerful enemies on all sides, this Joshua led the people of Israel into their promised land, the land of Canaan. So also, Jesus the King will someday lead all the redeemed into their promised land, the land of paradise. Only Joshua can lead us into the Promised Land; only Jesus can save us from the bondage of the Law.