Messiah, Immanuel, Son of Man, Lord, Word, Lamb, Lion. Each title answers a different question about who He is, and each comes with a verse you can open.
The names of Jesus are really one personal name and a long list of titles. His name is Jesus, Yeshua in Hebrew, and it carries the sense that Yahweh saves. Christ, Lord, Immanuel, Son of Man and Lamb of God are titles, and each one tells you what He is and what He came to do.
Most of those titles were already sitting in Israel's Scriptures before He was born. The New Testament picks them up one at a time and says, this is who they were about.
What follows is a working index. Each title gets its verse, what it meant to the first people who heard it, and a link where we have gone further.
In first century Judea nobody had a surname, which is why Jesus had no last name. You were known by your father or your town, so the Gospels call Him Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Yeshua was a common name.
We have covered the name itself in what the name Jesus means, and the Hebrew form in who Yeshua is. The short version: Yeshua is a form of Yehoshua, the same name as Joshua, and Matthew 1:21 gives the reason for it. He will save His people from their sins.
Titles are different. A title is a claim. When Peter says Messiah, or Thomas says my Lord and my God in John 20:28, they are saying what they now believe about the man in front of them.
Christ is His last name, and the titles are a devotional list, a set of interchangeable ways to say something nice about Jesus.
Each title comes out of a specific place in Israel's story, carries a specific claim, and often got someone in trouble for saying it out loud.
A name tells you who someone is. A title tells you what they are. Jesus has one name and many titles, and every title is an argument about Him.
Several of the best known names of Jesus were written centuries before Him, often about events in the prophet's own day. The New Testament writers read Israel's story through Jesus and saw where it had been heading.
God with us. Isaiah gave it as a sign to King Ahaz in wartime. Matthew sees it filled to the brim in Jesus. More in what Emmanuel means.
The last of four throne names for a coming son of David: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Peace here is shalom, a world put right. See the Prince of Peace.
God promised David a son whose throne would stand. Matthew opens his Gospel with the title. Our Son of David study follows the thread.
Jacob calls Judah a lion's cub and says the scepter will not depart from him. Revelation gives Jesus the title and then does something surprising with it. See the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
A shoot from the stump of Jesse. David's family tree is cut down, and new life comes out of the stump.
Not a throne name at all. This servant is despised and carries the sins of others. In Acts 8 Philip starts from Isaiah 53 and tells an Ethiopian official the good news about Jesus.
One misuse to flag: Everlasting Father does not mean the Son is secretly the Father. It is a royal title for a king who cares for his people like a father. Scripture keeps Father and Son distinct, which is why we hold one God in three Persons. See is God and Jesus the same person.
These are the titles the first believers said in public, and each one could get you put out of a synagogue or hauled before a magistrate.
Mashiach in Hebrew, Christos in Greek, both meaning anointed. Bible Odyssey puts it plainly: “the word Christ (Greek Christos) is simply the Greek rendering of the Hebrew word for messiah (meshiakh)”. Kings and priests were anointed, so calling Jesus the Christ says He is the King. The Hebrew is in Messiah meaning and the Greek in Christ meaning.
Kyrios could mean sir or master, but the Greek Old Testament used it for the divine name, so Jesus is Lord in Romans 10:9 carries full weight. In a Roman world that demanded loyalty to Caesar, it was also a statement of allegiance. See Jesus is Lord.
John 1:1 and 1:14. Logos meant word, and also the reason behind things. The Word was with God, was God, and became flesh. Jesus is what God has to say. More in Jesus is the Word.
Psalm 2:7 used it of Israel's king, and Exodus 4:22 calls Israel God's son. John takes it further: the one and only Son, who has made the Father known (John 1:18). We walk through it in is Jesus the Son of God.
“He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’”
Matthew 16:15 to 16, ESVWhat does the title Christ literally mean?
Christos is the Greek form of the Hebrew mashiach, anointed. Kings and priests were anointed with oil, so the title is a royal claim before it is anything else.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
Jesus rarely called Himself Messiah out loud. He called Himself the Son of Man, more than any other title.
On its face the phrase means a human being, as when God addresses Ezekiel. But Daniel 7:13 gives it a second life. One like a son of man comes with the clouds to the Ancient of Days and is given a kingdom that will never be destroyed. Notice the direction. The figure comes to God, not down to earth. It is an enthronement scene, and our Son of Man meaning study takes it line by line.
“Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Matthew 16:28, ESVJesus put a clock on it. Some standing there would see it. At His trial He told the high priest that from now on he would see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds (Matthew 26:64). And in Matthew 24:34 He said this generation would not pass away until all these things took place.
We believe the coming of the Son of Man in the Gospels was fulfilled in the first century. Jesus was enthroned at the Father's right hand, and the judgment He announced on the temple fell in AD 70, inside the generation He was speaking to. That was the covenant transition, the end of the age He talked about. The full case is in our Olivet Discourse study.
The strongest form of the other view says this language is too cosmic to describe anything but a visible event still ahead of us. We understand that reading. But clouds and falling stars are the prophets' normal language for God judging a nation, as in Isaiah 13 about Babylon, and Jesus tied the timing to the people in the room. Taking Him at His word means reading it as fulfilled.
This is not a point about charts. If the Son of Man has received His kingdom, He reigns now. We live under a King who already is.
John records seven titles Jesus spoke over Himself, each with a picture. Our I Am statements study covers the set. Here is the index, with the verse for each.
Said the day after He fed a crowd, with manna in the air. See the bread of life.
Spoken around the Feast of Tabernacles. Whoever follows Him will not walk in darkness. See Jesus is the light of the world.
The way in for the sheep. Safety and pasture are on the other side of Him.
He lays down His life for the sheep, where the hired hand runs. See the Good Shepherd.
Said to Martha outside her brother's tomb. For her it was not a doctrine. It was a Person standing there.
Said the night before the cross. He is the road to the Father, not a guide pointing at one. See the way, the truth and the life.
Psalm 80 and Isaiah 5 picture Israel as God's vine. Jesus is the true one, and we live by staying joined to Him.
No picture at all. It echoes Exodus 3:14, where God tells Moses I AM WHO I AM.
“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”
John 8:58The next verse says they picked up stones. They heard Him take the name God gave at the burning bush.
John the Baptist gave the first of these. Seeing Jesus walk toward him, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Passover lamb, Isaiah 53, the daily offerings. John does not pick one, and our Lamb of God study sorts them out.
“See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed.” … “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne.”
Revelation 5:5 To 6This is the key move in the book. John is told a Lion has triumphed, and he turns and sees a slaughtered Lamb. The victory is the cross. Power, as Jesus shows it, looks like self-giving love, and that corrects much of what people had said about God and violence before Him.
Revelation was written to seven real churches in Asia about things that must soon take place (Revelation 1:1), and it was fulfilled in their time. Its names for Jesus steadied real people under real pressure.
The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. In 1:8 the Lord God says it, and in 22:13 Jesus says it of Himself. The beginning and the end are the same Person. See Alpha and Omega meaning.
Caesar was not the last word. The Lamb was. More in King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Offered to a Samaritan woman at a well. John 7:39 says the living water is the Spirit. See what living water is.
“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Philippians 2:9 to 11None of these titles is a password that forces God's hand. Doing something in the name of Jesus means doing it on His authority and in line with His character, the way an ambassador speaks in the name of a king.
That is where the names get practical. Anxious? He is the Prince of Peace. Feeling alone? Immanuel, God with us. Carrying guilt? The Lamb who takes away sin. Wandered off? The Good Shepherd goes looking. Each title is an invitation to trust Him in a specific way.
You are not praying to someone waiting in the wings. You are praying to the King who reigns now. If you want someone to pray with you, send us a request, and if you are on Long Island, come see us in Deer Park.
For related reading, see what Yahweh means, I Am Who I Am and the Trinity in the Bible.
Jesus has one name, Yeshua, Yahweh saves, and a long list of titles drawn from Israel's Scriptures, and every one of them, Messiah, Lord, Word, Son of Man, Lamb and Lion, describes the same Person, who reigns now.
Tell us what you are carrying, and someone from Sound of Heaven will pray with you by name.
It depends on how you count, which is why lists online disagree. Jesus has one personal name, Yeshua, and many titles: Christ, Lord, Immanuel, Son of Man, Son of God, Word, Lamb of God, Lion of Judah, Good Shepherd and more. Some lists count every picture, like Branch, and others only formal titles. The pattern matters more than the number. Each title makes a specific claim about who He is.
His name is Yeshua, a form of Yehoshua, the same name as Joshua. It carries the sense that Yahweh saves, the reason Matthew 1:21 gives for it. The name passed into Greek as Iesous and into English as Jesus. None of those is more real than the others. They are one name carried across languages, and God hears prayer in any of them.
No. Christ is a title. It comes from the Greek Christos, which translates the Hebrew mashiach, Messiah, meaning anointed one. Kings and priests were anointed with oil, so calling Jesus the Christ claims He is the promised King. People in first century Judea had no surnames. They were known by father or town, which is why the Gospels say Jesus of Nazareth.
Because it said two things at once. Son of man means a human being. But Daniel 7:13 shows one like a son of man coming with the clouds to the Ancient of Days to receive a kingdom. Jesus used it more than any other title and tied it to His own generation. We believe it was fulfilled when He was enthroned and the temple fell in AD 70.
It means praying on His authority and in line with His character, not adding a password to the end of a prayer. Acting in someone's name meant representing them, the way an ambassador speaks for a king. So praying in Jesus' name means asking for what He would ask for and coming to the Father through Him. The relationship matters more than the words.