Because of translation issues, many Christians don’t realize
that the Jewish Messiah they worship was named Joshua by his parents at God’s
command. The name we use comes to English through the Greek and Latin because the
earliest New Testaments were based on those languages. Having been written in
Greek originally, the name Joshua was translated as Iasus (Ἰησοῦς: Greek
doesn’t have a letter “J”.) The Latin became Jesu. The morphing of one European
language into the next until English finally appeared brought us to our
familiar name for the Savior, Jesus.
I went through that etymology lesson to make it clear that
when God told Joseph to give his son a name, it was clearly prophetic. As the gospel
writer Matthew reports, God told Joseph, “You will call his name Joshua (God
Saves) because he will save his people from their sins.” (Mt. 1:21) This seems
to contradict the words of the prophet Isaiah from which Matthew claims the
name was drawn in the next verse. Isaiah says the child will be called “Emmanuel.”
There is no contradiction when you understand that many Jews would end up with
two names once their destiny was made plain.
Having set the stage, I want to show why the Savior’s name
is “fishy.” Early Christians were subject to severe persecution for following
Jesus, so they developed several secret codes to make it possible to share
their identity with Christ without alerting unbelievers who might want to harm
them. One of these codes was the Greek word for fish: ichthus (ἰχθύς). This is genius
on several levels. First, Jesus called His first disciples from among fishermen
and promised they would become fishers of men. Then, as He continued His
teaching, fish often played prominent roles in His lessons. Finally, fish were
a staple of the first century diet of many people around the Mediterranean Sea,
so the word was ubiquitous.
Even more
interesting is what the early Christians did with the letters making up the
word fish. Each letter was assigned a theological concept that formed the basis
of their faith. What I am going to say in the following paragraphs is not new;
there have been thousands of sermons penned on this, but I want to present my
thoughts for your consideration.
The first letter in
the Greek word for fish (ἰχθύς) is iota. This corresponds to the English letter “i.” As I have already
pointed out, iota is the first letter in the Greek version of the Messiah’s
given name, Ἰησοῦς. I have also already given the most significant meaning of the name: God saves.
If you think of it as a Jew would, meaning Joshua, there is also a wealth of
historical allusion. Moses’ successor brought the Israelites into the Promised
Land. He led the nation in their military feats that validated God’s special
care for them. The typology with the Messiah is undeniable.
The second letter,
chi (χ), corresponds to the beginning of the word, Christ (Χριστός). Again, this is a
Hellenization of the Jewish concept, “Messiah.” In Hebrew, messiah means anointed
one; this is precisely what the Greek word christos means as well. This word is
freighted with meaning. The Israelites were commanded to initiate prophets,
priests and kings by the process of anointing. The ceremony involved pouring a
special scented oil on the head of the anointed one, so much so that it ran
down his body. Inasmuch as the Holy Spirit is represented as oil throughout
Scripture, the analogy is obvious. Because Jesus is the ultimate prophet,
priest and king, His anointing by the Holy Spirit is of great significance.
The third letter, theta (q),
begins the Greek word for God (θεός). Over the centuries, there have been many debates as to what it means,
exactly, to say the Jesus is God. The simplest explanation seems to me to be
found in the Gospel of John. In the first verses of his gospel, John states
clearly that the Word, another name for Jesus, was God. Various sects have
tried to play with the language and make the plain truth of John somehow more
complicated. The early Christians had no such difficulty; Jesus said plainly on
more than one occasion that He claimed to be the “I Am.”* This was a clear
statement of His identification with God, so much so that the Jews who heard
Him and disbelieved wanted to kill Him for blasphemy.
The fourth letter in
ἰχθύς (ichthus) is upsilon (υ) corresponding to the English letter “U,” which is the first letter in
the Greek word for son (υἱός).
To some people, this appears to contradict the claim that Jesus is God. They
would ask how someone can be God and Son of God at the same time. The word “time”
may provide the solution to this apparent contradiction. Before time, that is
in all eternity past prior to the creation of our universe, the being we know
as Jesus was co-equal with the being we know as God the Father. Paul makes this
abundantly clear in the second chapter of Philippians. Jesus chose to shed
something of what it meant to be God in eternity so that He could become the
Son of God in time. This is the message of the incarnation: God became flesh so
that mere humans could see the glory of God.
The unfortunate mistranslation of John 3:16 has caused much
confusion about who the Son of God actually is. The phrase, “only begotten son,”
seems to indicate that Jesus was born or came into being at some point in time.
The commentary from the Faith Life Study Bible clears this up. “At one time, it
was presumed that the term derived from the Greek words monos (“one” or “only”) and gennaō
(“to beget”). The translation “only begotten” is based on this assumption.
Subsequent manuscript discoveries produced evidence that the term actually
comes from monos and the noun genē (“kind” or “type”). The term monogenēs therefore refers to uniqueness
and has no inherent reference to chronology or origin.”
Jesus entered time as a unique being, never before or ever
after duplicated. It is my belief that Jesus retains His God/Man status in
eternity future. Jesus, the Son of God, submitted to His Heavenly Father during
His earthly ministry, accomplishing what only God could do: He made atonement
for the sins of all humanity by His death on the cross. God validated that
payment by bringing Jesus, the God/Man, back from the dead in a glorified body and
seating Him at the Father’s right hand as co-regent, a position similar to what
had existed prior to the incarnation. The difference is that Jesus will forever
exist as the glorified Son in His relationship to the Father and the Father’s
adopted family: all believers from all time.
The last letter of ἰχθύς (ichthus) is the sigma (ς). This is the first letter of the Greek word for savior (σωτήρ). The meaning here
is obvious: Jesus saved all who will believe on Him from an eternity separated
from God. All humans from Adam onward are born alienated from the fellowship
for which they were created. This state of alienation is known biblically as
death. The only way to regain that fellowship, to be made alive again, is to be
rescued, saved, by the power of the Cross of Calvary. What Jesus did on the Cross
undid what Adam did in the Garden. There is no greater grace than the freely
offered rescue that Jesus accomplished by His atoning death. He is the ultimate
Savior.
So, the next time
you see one on the bumper of a car, remember the full lesson in theology that
fish represents. Jesus. Christ. God. Son. Savior. There’s nothing fishy about that.
* The name of God
given to Moses, I am that I am, or just I Am, has an interesting meaning in
itself. By claiming to be “I Am,” God was telling Moses that He alone is the
self-existing one. Everything else is created by and dependent on the one who
exists from all eternity. Thus when Jesus called Himself the I Am, He was
claiming eternal existence, a trait which can only be assigned to God Himself.
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