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2. Who is Yeshua?

Yeshua is the Hebrew name for Jesus. When the angel appeared to Miriam (Mary) to let her know that she would become pregnant with the Messiah, Matt 1:21 states, "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus [Yeshua: salvation], for He will save [Yoshea] His people from their sins."  If you were hearing the Hebrew that Miriam heard the angel speak to her, you would be able to see the linguistic connection and understand the significance of Yeshua’s name.  


The name “Jesus” does not mean anything today, it is just a translation of a translation of the name Yeshua into several different languages until it gets to the English. Hebrew is the language Miriam spoke and the angel spoke to her; however, Yeshua carries the meaning of "salvation," and thus the angel's explanation of the point of His name and His mission are made clear when understood in the Hebrew. In the Hebrew you hear the rhyming sound of the same root terms meaning “save” and “salvation” between Yeshua and Yoshea. Thus in the Hebrew we would understand the angel saying to Miriam “. . . you shall call his name “salvation” because He will “save” His people from their sins.”


It is unusual not to simply transliterate the name Yeshua into any other language a person may speak, like we do for anyone’s name today, rather than changing the name altogether and removing its meaning.  However, I was “saved” utilizing and calling on the name of Jesus, so I would not say there is anything wrong with using the name Jesus today (often when speaking on radio to a Christian audience I utilize the name Jesus because that is what the audience is most familiar with); however, now that I know His real name, and I call on His name, “Salvation,” because it is He who “saves” me; it simply seems more fitting to use His real name, Yeshua, because there is power in words and in so doing I am proclaiming “Salvation” in speaking His Name.


The Apostles testify that Jesus (Yeshua) of Nazareth is the promised Davidic Messiah (i.e. he was of the line of David), the Son of God (signifying his divinity), the “Word made flesh” (John 1:14), “in whom the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9).