HIS NAME IS WONDERFUL: PART 3 - IN THE NAME OF THE SON

His Name is Wonderful | Part 3 - In the Name of the Son

Mr. D. was by far the most popular teacher in the school.  The fact that he was handsome, single and only a few years older than the students he taught, made him popular with the girls.  The fact that he loved cars made him popular with the guys.  One year, the talk of the school was the new car Mr. D. had ordered: a Ford Mustang, the best of the muscle cars.  The students were almost as disappointed as Mr. D. when, in January, there were so many demands for the car that it took an extra couple of months for the local dealership to get in the model he had ordered.

Finally, it came!  What a beauty!  Brilliant red paint, highly polished chrome bumpers, sleek lines, aerodynamically designed; it was a high-performance machine obviously built for speed.  After classes were over, guys and girls would hover around the car, listening to Mr. D. extol its virtues: the soundness of the engine, how well it handled on tight curves, how fast he could reach 100 miles per hour in it.  The best part of all, was that Mr. D. was willing to show off his baby by giving kids rides in his car during his one free period.

red mustang One of my favorite high school memories was the day I finally got to ride in Mr. D.'s car.  I was one of the last to get a ride, because I had a class during Mr. D.'s free period.  Finally, one day after the class I had from him, we dashed out to his car, jumped in and headed out to a long, straight stretch of road just outside of town.  Stopping, turning around and pointing back toward town, Mr. D. turned and grinned.  "You ready?"

"Ready!"

Gunning the engine, Mr. D. "laid rubber."  In a matter of seconds we were flying down the road at 115 miles an hour (185 kph) - this at a time when the legal speed limit was only 55 mph (88 kph)!  To complete the thrill of the illicit adventure, Mr. D. even wrote out a permission slip to excuse the fact that I was a good 10 minutes late to my next class! 1

Then tragedy struck.  About a month before school let out for the summer, someone stole Mr. D.'s Mustang.  The whole student body was upset, and none more so than Mr. D.  His beloved car in which he took such delight, his baby, for which he had waited, and saved, (and for which he still had many payments left to make), was gone!  Police reports, endless paperwork for the insurance company, notices posted around town, all followed.  But the police were not able to locate the car.  It had vanished as quickly as Mr. D.'s joy.  Some began to wonder if it had been taken to a "chop shop" and dismantled for parts to ship overseas.

The school year ended, and no Mustang had been found.

When school started again, we were all eager to see if Mr. D. had purchased a new car.  No, he was still driving the same old clunker he had driven before purchasing the Mustang and he was still heart-sick over the loss.

Six weeks into the new school year, Mr. D. got a phone call.  The police had finally found his car!  The bad news, was that it was in wreckage yard in a city 200 miles away.  When the VIN number was run, workers discovered the car had been stolen and called the police.  Mr. D. raced to the wreckage yard.

What a sad sight to greet his eyes!  In place of the tenderly cared for car, was a pile of junk.  One side mirror was broken, the other was entirely missing.  The front windshield and one side window were broken.  Deep grooves along the sides told of hard use, with little care for what was brushed up against.  When he tried to raise the hood to see the engine, he could not even do that.  Too many dents and cracks held the hood firmly in place, making it impossible to lift.

Great was the indignation at school the next day when we learned that Mr. D. had actually had to pay to get his junk heap back!  It belonged to him, after all!  To have to actually pay the wreckers $200 to regain what was rightfully his seemed very unjust to us.  But redeem it he did.  And then he did something that did not make any sense to some of us: he took it to a body repair shop!

Mr. D. was going to fix his car!  Why he did not just start over with a new one made no sense to some of us, but Mr. D. understood.  He loved that car; that particular car was the only one he wanted.  The slow work of restoration began.  The body repair shop fixed what dents they could, replacing what they couldn't.  The inside of the car had been so damaged that the driver's seat had to be entirely replaced, with the other seats reupholstered.

The day finally came when the body repair shop called: Mr. D. could come collect his car.  There it stood!  What a beauty!  Brilliant red paint, highly polished chrome bumpers, sleek lines, aerodynamically designed; it looked like a high-performance machine built for speed.  Then he lifted the hood.  The sight that met his eyes was enough to make a grown man cry.  There would be no driving of this beauty.  Not yet.

Mr. D. had the car towed to a mechanic and the slow work of restoration began all over again.  A new engine was required, along with many other repairs.  It was the work of months, for many replacement parts had to be ordered.  Finally, one day in spring, Mr. D. proudly drove the Mustang to school.  It was beautiful!  The wax sheen on the new paint job shone in the early morning sun.  The highly polished bumpers reflected the faces of the students thronging around.  It was once again a high-performance machine obviously built for speed.  Strangely enough, Mr. D. loved that car more than ever before.  Although it had cost him so much time, effort, grief and extra money, having it back, redeemed from the junk yard, restored to its former glory, the car was more precious to him than before!

Watching this drama unfold before my eyes over the course of two school years, made a deep impression on my young mind.  Aside from not understanding that level of devotion to a car, I couldn't understand why Mr. D. would lavish so much extra time and money on that car.  Why not simply start over?  If you are going to put that much money in to fixing it up, why not just buy a brand new one?

As I have gotten older, I have come to understand the reasons why Mr. D. would make such sacrifices to reclaim and tenderly restore the car.  It was not just any car: it was his car.  Yes, it had been stolen from him, but it still belonged to him.  That was why he was willing to pay $200 to redeem a heap of junk.  He loved that car, and simply replacing it with another would not be the same.

This is precisely what God has gone through for us.  When Adam and Eve sinned, He could so easily have just started over!  He could have blotted them, and Lucifer and his angels out of existence.  He could have erased the memory of them from the minds of the holy, unfallen beings.  He was the Creator after all!  Who could have stopped Him?  No one would ever have known!

But He would have known.

It would have been a very easy thing for the Creator to start over with a brand new race of beings.  Far simpler than saving what had been destroyed.  But it was the route of salvation that He chose.

God decided to save the guilty race at any cost to Himself.  His Son, who was One with the Father, in purpose, in love, agreed with the costly decision.  The two entered into covenant agreement.  The guilty race was not to be abandoned or replaced.  Instead, it was to be redeemed and, once redeemed, it was to be restored back to favor with the Creator.

[D]ivine love had conceived a plan whereby man might be redeemed.  The broken law of .God demanded the life of the sinner.  In all the universe there was but one who could, in behalf of man, satisfy its claims.  Since the divine law is as sacred as .God Himself, only one equal with . God could make atonement for its transgression.  None but . . . [the Son] could redeem fallen man from the curse of the law and bring him again into harmony with Heaven.  . . . [The Son] would take upon Himself the guilt and shame of sin--sin so offensive to a holy .God that it must separate the Father and His Son.  . . . [The Saviour] would reach to the depths of misery to rescue the ruined race. 2

This was an extremely expensive undertaking!  The divine law, the Law of Love, was perfect and thus could not be changed.  The requirements of the law were simple and clear:
Obey and Live
Disobey and Die

dictionary definition of salvage In order to "salvage" the human race, they must first be redeemed. To redeem means to "purchase back; to ransom; to liberate or rescue from captivity or bondage, or from any obligation or liability . . ., by paying an equivalent . . . to repurchase what has been sold; to regain possession . . . by repaying the value of it . . . to rescue; to recover." The redemption price that must be paid was death, because "almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission" of sins. (Hebrews 9:22, KJV)

The Son of God was the great Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.  (See John 1:29.)  The Son of the Omnipotent One is the Saviour of Mankind, because He paid the price to redeem the fallen race from death.  The Saviour clearly understood that His death was the redemption price.  The evening before He was betrayed when He instituted the communion service at the Last Supper, "He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you.  For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.'"  (Matthew 26:27, 28

The Saviour spoke of death as but a sleep.  When Lazarus died, He let the disciples know of His intent to resurrect him by stating: "Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up."  (John 11:11  To the Life-giver, death is but a sleep - a rest from labors.  It is because the redemption price has been paid that death is, for the child of God, but a sleep.

three crosses at sunset This is not the death which the Messiah died.  The Saviour died the "second death" that all must die who reject His offer of salvation.  This is why the emotional agony on the cross was so great that He scarcely felt the pain of crucifixion.  The second death is complete and total separation from God, the source of all life.  It was this that wrung from His lips the cry, "My God!  My God!  Why have You forsaken Me?"  (See Matthew 27:46.)  On the cross, the Saviour bore the weight of guilt for every sin ever committed by every single person who has ever lived or who shall ever live.

He, the sinless One, bore the guilt of sinners that they, through Him, might be restored to favor with God.  His resurrection was proof that He had lived a sinless life because the divine law decrees that all who obey shall live.  It is an assurance to all who will trust in their Saviour that they, too, shall live again, even if they "fall asleep" in Him.

But the process of salvation was not yet complete.  The redemption price had been paid, but that was all.  The next step was restoration.  Mr. D. redeemed his car by paying the junk yard $200, but it was not yet drivable.  Before he could once again enjoy the Mustang, it had to be painstakingly and tenderly restored.  At first, Mr. D. couldn't even look inside the hood to see the engine.  Exterior body work had to be done first.

This has its parallel in human lives.  Often the Saviour will work on the outside of a person first.  Addictions to pet sins, be they alcohol, drugs, nicotine, movies, music or novels, or anything else that beclouds the mind, must first be cleaned up in order that the mind will be clear and ready for the next stage of the restoration process.  This next stage of the process is invisible to any human eye.

It is impossible for finite minds to comprehend the work of redemption.  Its mystery exceeds human knowledge; yet he who passes from death to life realizes that it is a divine reality.  The beginning of redemption we may know here through a personal experience.  Its results reach through the eternal ages.4

The active agent in the restoration of mankind is the Holy Spirit.  The Saviour likened this to the wind: it cannot be seen; no one knows where it comes from or where it goes, but it can be felt and the effect can be seen.

While the wind is itself invisible, it produces effects that are seen and felt.  So the work of the Spirit upon the soul will reveal itself in every act of him who has felt its saving power.  When the Spirit of . God takes possession of the heart, it transforms the life.  Sinful thoughts are put away, evil deeds are renounced; love, humility, and peace take the place of anger, envy, and strife.  Joy takes the place of sadness, and the countenance reflects the light of heaven.  No one sees the hand that lifts the burden, or beholds the light descend from the courts above.  The blessing comes when by faith the soul surrenders itself to .God.  Then that power which no human eye can see creates a new being in the image of .God.5

The Creator knew a profound truth.  Redemption without restoration is not truly salvation. In order for the fallen race to once again enjoy oneness with the Creator, the inner heart must be cleansed of all sin.  The mind itself must be recreated that the image of the Father could once again be enshrined in the soul.

This is not something that anyone can do for him- or herself.  It can only be done through faith in the Son of God, for only by His merits can anyone be saved.  The promise is given to all who will believe:

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.  And I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments and do them.  . . . and ye shall be My people, and I will be your .God.  And I will also save you from all your uncleannesses.  (Ezekiel 36:26-29, KJV)

The plan of salvation embraces much more than the mere redemption price paid for a soul.  It provides for the entire restoration of the divine image in the human soul.  A soul thus redeemed and restored is brought into an even closer relationship with Divinity than if he had never fallen because the Saviour, having once taken on a human body, will forever remain one with the human race.  

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in the Son, for the law of the Spirit of life in the Saviour has made me free from the law of sin and death.  What shall we then say to these things?  If God be for us, who can be against us?  He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?  Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?  It is God that justifies.  Who is he that condemns?  Who shall separate us from the love of the Saviour?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or pesecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  No!  In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in His Son our Lord Jesus Christ.  (See Romans 8.)

God "has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, . . . who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, . . . having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they."  (Hebrews 1:2-4

The name of the only begotten Son of God is very special and full of meaning.  This is underscored by Paul's point that the Son has by inheritance obtained a name that is more excellent than that of the angels.

To inherit something means "to receive by nature from a progenitor.  [I.e.], The son inherits the virtues of his father . . . ."6  Because the Christ is the Son of God, He has inherited a name that is above all other names.

Centuries before the Jesus' birth, God encouraged Moses with the assurance:

Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.  Beware of Him and obey His voice . . . for My name is in Him."  (Exodus 23:20-21

The name of the eternal Father God, is in the name of the Son.  The angel Gabriel was divinely commissioned to instruct Mary what to name her Son.

And the Messenger [Angel] came to her and said to her, "Peace to you full of grace, our Master is with you and so you are blessed among women!"

But when she saw him she was disturbed at his saying and wondered, "What is this greeting?"

And the Messenger said to her, "Do not be afraid, Maryam, for you have found grace with God.  For behold you will receive conception and bear a son and you will call His name Jesus.  This one will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest, and Lord God will give to Him the throne of David.  (See Luke 1:26-32, Aramaic English New Testament.7)

As with the Father's own personal, divine name, the importance of the
Son's name is found in its definition.

The beautiful meaning contained in the Saviour's name is an all-encompassing revelation of the mighty salvation offered sinners.  Yahushua means:

   Yahuwah Save! (A cry for help to the only One who can help.)
   Yahuwah Saves! (A joyous statement of fact.)
   Yahuwah Saving (An present-tense immediate action.)
   Yahuwah's Salvation (An all-encompassing statement of who and what the Saviour is.)

The plan to save guilty man was not an afterthought.  It was no spur-of-the-moment "brainstorm" after the fall.  The plan of salvation revealed the secret that had been kept in silence from ages past.  This secret was that, should sin ever arise, the Father would stop at nothing to save His creatures.  In order to save the human race, it required a level of self-sacrifice on the part of the Father which baffles selfish human hearts.  The plan of redemption did not guarantee that all would be saved.  It offered the opportunity to sinners, but did not force them to accept the salvation offered.

God sacrificed His beloved Son in order to give people the chance to choose!  What wondrous love!  With absolutely no guarantees that any would choose to accept such a priceless gift, the Father and the Son entered into covenant agreement to save the guilty race at any cost to Themselves.

The very name of the Saviour is an encouragement to believe and accept the gift offered.  It inspires faith: God saves to the uttermost all that come unto Him through His Son.

The import of the Saviour's name is clearly expressed in Acts 4:12: "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."  (KJV)  This is a profound statement!  "There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved!"  The apostles clearly understood the importance of the Saviour's name:

To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.  (Acts 10:43, NKJV)

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him Jesus and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father.  (Philippians 2:9-11

And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.  (1 John, 3:23

With such vast importance being found in the holy Name, it was Satan's studied attempt to hide the Name whereby all must be saved.

The name "Jesus" comes from an attempt to transliterate the name through several different languages.  It does not come direct from the Hebrew or the New Testament Aramaic.

"Yahushua" as a name was used by others recorded in the Old Testament.  The most well-known was Joshua, son of Nun, who led the children of Israel into the Promised Land.  While "Joshua" itself is not a precise transliteration of "Yahushua" it is certainly closer than "Jesus"!  In investigating the Saviour's name, the first thing to realize is that Hebrew did not contain a "J".  In fact, such a letter is of fairly recent origin even in English.

very old book The adoption of "J" into English, (which influenced the names Joshua and Jesus) was as recent as the 17th century.  The first book to be published in English which made a difference between I and J was published in 1634.  It was the last of the 26 letters to be added to the English alphabet.  Prior to that time, the letter "I" was used, spoken as a "Y".

The word hallelujah is a good illustration of the evolution of this letter.  When Noah Webster wrote his dictionary in the early 19th century, he insisted on spelling the word HALLELUIAH, although even in his day it was already being spelled with a J.  The word means "Praise be to Yah" or "Praise ye Yah."  Webster noted in his definition of the word:

This word is improperly written with j, in conformity with the German and other continental languages, in which j has the sound of y.  But to pronounce the word with the English sound of j destroys its beauty.  The like mistake of the sound of j in Jehovah, Jordan, Joseph, has perverted the true pronunciation, which was Yehovah, 8 Yordan, Yoseph.  This perversion must now be submitted to, but in Halleluiah it ought not to be tolerated. 9

The transformation from Yahushua to Jesus can be seen when one looks at the Greek rendering for the name Joshua.  Again, Joshua is the same name as Yahushua in Hebrew.  When the Old Testament was translated into Greek in the third and second centuries BCE, the Greek translators ran into a problem when transliterating the name Joshua/Yahushua.  The name contained two sounds which Greek did not have: Y and Sh.

In an attempt to get the Name as close as possible, but still readable to their Greek speaking readers, the name was spelled variously as:
alt alt
alt alt

Using English letters, that would be IESOUS (ee-ay-soos).  Contributing to the name change was the fact that when the "ua" was transliterated into Greek, it was a feminine singular ending.  This created confusion for the Greek reader, as it denoted a woman's name in the Greek!  Most Greek names for males ended in S:

Achilles
Leonidus
Icarus
Erebus
Hermes
Aeneas
Lærtes
Apollos
Proteus
Aristedes
Ulysses
Midas
Minos
Odysseus

The altered form of the Name opened up the charge from pagan writers that the name Iesous was actually the same as their demon god, Zeus and indeed, one can hear a close similarity between Zeus and ee-ay-soos.  Zeus was the chief god of the Greek pantheon and his name was frequently added to names and geographic locations as a way of honoring him.  The endings sus, seus and sous are simply phonetic pronunciations of this pagan god.  The sacred mountain, Parnassus, as well  as the hero Odysseus, both had such endings.  Two of Zeus' sons also had name-endings which honored their father.  These were Dionysus and Perseus.

latin text When the Greek was translated into Latin, the Name was corrupted still further into Iesus.  In Latin, masculine singular gender is denoted by the "us" ending.  (This can be seen in the Latin male names: Claudius, Augustus, Aurelius, Marcus, etc.)  The Latin form of Jesus was used in one English Bible printed in 1560.  Note that although it appears to have been spelled Iefus, it is actually the Latin form, Iesus.  In Old English, the letter s when contained within a word bore a striking resemblance to the modern f without the cross stroke.

old English text

21 When Peter therefore sawe him he said to Iesus, Lord, what shal this man do?

22 Iesus said vnto him, If I wil that he tarie til I come, what is it to thee? followe thou me.

Certain languages take the Latin form and spell it as Jesu (yay-zoo) or Jesús (hay-soos).  The problem with these corruptions of the sacred Name, is that nowhere in them can one find the name of the Father, for the name of Yahuwah must be in the name of His Son.  To have faith to call upon the name of the Saviour, one must know the name.

Jesus recognized the significance of His name and all that it implied about His mission to save the lost.  He stated: "I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive."  (John 5:43, KJV)

In Isaiah's famous prophecy of the Messiah, he stated: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name, Immanuel."  (Isaiah 7:14, KJV)  "Immanuel" means, literally, Yahuwah with us.  This is what Yahushua, the divine Son of the Infinite, is to every son and daughter of Adam.

Yahushua is the very embodiment of His Father's character.  Since He came to earth, all may know that God knows and sympathizes with our trials and sorrows.  Every sinner may know that the Creator is the friend of sinners.  Through the great plan of salvation, the all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere-present God is revealed as the God of Love.  Satan's charges against God are silenced in the gift of His only begotten Son to die for the human race.  In the Son, all may see the love of the Father and throughout eternal ages the redeemed will praise God for His infinite Gift:

Immanuel, "Yahuwah with us."

Yahushua was Yahuwah revealed in human flesh.

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by Him;
and without Him was not anything made that was made.
In Him was life;
and the life was the light of men.
And the light shines in darkness;
and the darkness comprehended it not.
(See John 1:1-5.)

The beautifully sublime words of the beloved disciple, John, reveal the nature and mission of the Saviour of mankind.  They show Jesus' preexistence and union with the eternal Father in the work of Creation.

A study of the divine Names is a study of words.  John's choice of words in this passage is very interesting.  To encapsulate the very essence of the Son, Who and What He is, both to us and to His Father, John described Him as "the Word."

aged book Words are crucial in order to communicate.  Without words, no true and accurate communication can occur.  Grunts, smiles, frowns, and pointing can only get you so far.  To convey information on any depth, words are required.

Words express thought.  This is why John called Jesus "the Word."  From the days of eternity past, Jesus was one with His Father.  He was the very image of God; the image of His greatness, His majesty, His glory, His goodness.  It was to reveal the Father's character that Jesus came to earth.  The Son came to demonstrate in His own life the thoughts and feelings of God.  As prophesied in Isaiah, He came to be, literally, "God with us."  (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:22, 23)

By coming to dwell with us, Jesus was to reveal God both to men and to angels.  He was the Word of God -- His] thought made audible.  In His prayer for His disciples He says, "I have declared unto them Thy name"--"merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth"--"that the love wherewith Thou has loved Me may be in them, and I in them."

But not alone for His earthborn children was this revelation given. Our little world is the lesson book of the universe God's wonderful purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme into which, "angels desire to look," and it will be their study throughout endless ages.  Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in the cross . . . their science and their song.  It will be seen that the glory shining in the face of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing love.  In the light from Calvary it will be seen that the law of self-renouncing love is the law of life for earth and heaven; that the love which "seeketh not her own" has its source in the heart of . . . [the Father]; and that in the meek and lowly One is manifested the character of Him who dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto. . . .10

The Father is revealed in His Son.  Looking at Jesus, the inner thoughts and feelings of God the Father are shown to be pure love and benevolence, patience, kindness, long-suffering, and mercy to all.  If the Father Himself had come from Heaven and lived out a life on earth, hiding His glory and taking on a human body so that all could look upon Him, the record we have of the Saviour's life would not have been changed at all.  In every act of the Son, in every lesson He taught, in every kind and forgiving word and deed, we can see and hear the Father.  In every particular, the life of the Son reveals what the Father would be like if He were a human.

Jesus is

the only begotten Son of the living God.  He is to the Father as a word that expresses the thought,--as a thought made audible. . . . [the Son] is the word of . . . [the Father]. Jesus said to Philip, "He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father."  His words were the echo of God's] words.  . . . [The Son] was the likeness of . . . [His Father], the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person.  As a personal being,God has revealed Himself in His Son Jesus, the outshining of the Father's glory, "and the express image of his person" (Hebrews 1:3), was on earth found in fashion as a man.11

The purpose of this costly revelation was to reveal to sin-darkened minds the Father's character of love.  After sin, human beings were no longer able to discern or even comprehend God's character of infinite, self-sacrificing love.  The divine character was viewed with fear.  It was to reveal the love of the Father, that the Christ came to live in human flesh.

Every beautiful character attribute originates in the Father and is revealed in His Son.

Kind: "Disposed to do good to others, and to make them happy by granting their requests, supplying their wants or assisting them in distress; having tenderness or goodness of nature."12

Gracious: "Favorable, kind; friendly . . . benevolent; merciful; disposed to forgive offenses and impart unmerited blessings."13

Benevolent: "Having a disposition to do good; possessing love to mankind, and a desire to promote their prosperity and happiness."14

Compassion: "A suffering with another; painful sympathy; a sensation of sorrow excited by the distress or misfortunes of another; pity; commiseration."15

Pity: "To feel pain or grief for one in distress; to have sympathy for; . . . to have tender feelings for one, excited by his unhappiness."16

Mercy: "That benevolence, mildness or tenderness of heart which disposes a person to overlook injuries, or to treat an offender better than he deserves; the disposition that tempers justice, and induces an injured person to forgive trespasses and injuries, and to forbear punishment."17

Nowhere are these beautiful, divine character attributes seen more clearly than in the story of the woman who had been caught in adultery and brought to Jesus for judgment.  Without a doubt, she was guilty.  She had been caught in the very act!  When the men who had dragged her before Him demanded what punishment she should receive, the Saviour responded in the same way God would have acted had He been standing there.  The Majesty of Heaven

stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.  So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first."  And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.  Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last.  And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.  (John 8:6-9

Merciful Redeemer!  Kind and loving Saviour!  Looking with compassion into her shame-filled eyes, He asked: "Where are your accusers?  Has no one condemned you?"  (See John 8:10.)  And she, who had been cringing in terror, waiting for the first hard rock to crush into her soft flesh, answered, "No one, Master."

Then the beautiful words, straight from the heart of God fell upon her ears: "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."  (John 8:11)

Here is revealed the two-fold plan of restoration:

   God does not condemn us, so our hearts are drawn to His love which is revealed to be infinite.
   The Creator's biddings are ennablings, so His command to "go and sin no more" contains the power to enable the repentant sinner to obey the divine injunction.

It is a divine principle that to know God is to love Him.  Thus, it was necessary to reveal the divine mind to sinners that they, in turn, might be drawn to Him.

Christ the Light of the world, veiled the dazzling splendor of His divinity and came to live as a man among men, that they might, without being consumed, become acquainted with their Creator.  Jesus came to teach human beings what . . . [the Father] desires them to know.  In the heavens above, in the earth, in the broad waters of the ocean, we see the handiwork of God.  All created things testify to His power, His wisdom, His love.  But not from the stars or the ocean or the cataract can we learn of the personality of . . . [the Father] as it is revealed in . . . [His Son].18

man standing barefoot By the revelation of divine love, minds were to be attracted to the divine mind and restored to the divine image.  The step-by-step process of infinite humiliation to which the Son willingly subjected Himself in order to reveal His Father's love is outlined in Scripture.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in . Christ: Who, being in the form of . God, ["Did not cling to His privileges as .God's) equal"]: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Christ Jesus every knee should bow . . . and that  every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Master], to the glory of God the Father.  (Phillipians 2:5-11, KJV; bracketed quote, J. B. Phillips translation.)

Because love is awakened only when love is given, the revelation of the Father's character of love is what leads sinners to be willing to surrender their own stubborn will to the divine will.  Love replaces fear and total confidence takes the place of distrust when the character of the Father is seen in the life of the Son.

Tender, compassionate, sympathetic, ever considerate of others, He represented the character of . . . [the Father], and was constantly engaged in service for .God and man. . . . As Jesus was in human nature, so . . . God means His followers to be.  In His strength we are to live the life of purity and nobility which the Saviour lived.19

When Love replaces Fear, then the promised recreation is accomplished.  The restoration is complete and the human perfectly reflects the image of the divine.  Everyone who will, by faith, claim God's Salvation in the promise of God Saves! will receive the gift of complete restoration.  Their redemption, begun at the cross, is completed as they are fully restored to reflect the character of the Father, because His law is written in their hearts.