Is Jesus’s Name Really Yeshua?

Is Jesus' name actually Yeshua?

If so, why do we call him Jesus? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. We're going to open up our phone lines right now, and you can call us for the next 25 minutes at this number, 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on one of our social media outlets. You can watch us on YouTube, and you can email us with your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, a question from Lori who's listening to us in Akron, New York. Lori, welcome to the program. Thank you.

Thank you for taking my call. I wanted to know about Genesis 1-28 and Genesis 1-9, I am sorry, 9-1. The word is replenish. I heard a pastor online that was teaching the Gap Theory, and he referred to these two passages where it says replenish the earth.

Now I'm talking about the King James Bible. No other Bible has replenish. It's just the King James Bible that says replenish. All the other versions say to fill the earth and so on. So I did some digging around about this word replenish, and from what I can understand that it was an old word that they used to use, but it didn't mean to replenish. It was just to fill up. So do you have any ideas about this word replenish in the King James?

Yeah, well I would say probably I prefer the translation to fill up. I mean what we have here is essentially what's sometimes referred to as the cultural mandate. And so in the early chapters of Genesis, in particular here in chapter 1, we're reaching the pinnacle of creation where God made mankind, Adam and Eve. And you have here this idea of God creating man in his own image. That's key in verses 26 and 27.

The value, the inherent value and dignity of humanity, but you also have this idea of vocation, what mankind is called to, Laurie, what God calls us to. And here in verse 28, it's very clear, God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. In other words, God was calling man to make disciples, if you will, Adam and Eve, to fill the earth, to expand God's kingdom there through procreation in the early chapters of Genesis. Now we know that this is prior to the fall, so this is how the kingdom of God is growing explicitly through having children and advancing essentially Eden throughout the whole world. That's what they were called to do, to subdue the earth and to cover the earth with the glory of God.

Now of course we know Adam and Eve didn't do that faithfully. They sinned against the Lord, but that's what they were being called to essentially. Now what's really interesting to me, Laurie, is when you look at the New Testament, this idea of being fruitful and multiplying, how that's sort of parsed out in particular under the New Covenant and especially in the book of Acts, because you have very similar language in the book of Acts. Remember the book of Acts is basically the acts of the Holy Spirit, what the Holy Spirit was doing early on in advancing the church, the kingdom of God throughout the world.

Talk about being fruitful and multiplying. And throughout the book of Acts, you have these summary statements where Luke will say something like, the word of God was fruitful and multiplied or increased powerfully, that kind of a thing. You see that in Acts chapter 6 verse 7. You see that in Acts chapter 12 verse 24. And so in other words, the way in which the earth is filled with the glory of God today right now is through the advancement of the gospel. As the word of God goes out and disciples are made through faithful preaching and teaching, the kingdom of God is spreading.

And so that's how I think we should understand it now for us today. But I think specifically what was happening there, I prefer the translation of filling the earth as opposed to replenishing the earth. We know that they were called to subdue the earth and ultimately to grow God's kingdom through making disciples, if you will.

I'm using that phrase a little bit loosely. But that's what Adam and Eve were called to do, to expand Eden, if you will, by faithfully serving the Lord. And we participate in the Great Commission today by being a part of local churches, by being under the ministry of the word, hearing that gospel proclaimed, and that gospel bears fruit in our lives and throughout the whole world. In fact, that's what Paul said in Colossians chapter 1 verse 6. Thank you for your question, Laurie, and may the Lord bless you. Interesting parallels between the Old and New Testament on that call to, you know, not only subdue the earth, but to replenish it, to fulfill it, and then to fill it with disciples, with followers of Jesus, right?

Yeah, it's really neat. I mean, this is why it's so important that we take the whole Bible together, because you can start to see how the apostles, the disciples of our Lord Jesus, began to parse out some of these concepts that you see, even in the early chapters of Genesis. I mean, for Luke to use that language of the word of God being fruitful and multiplying or increasing and multiplying powerfully, that kind of thing, he's echoing the language that we see there in Genesis chapter 1 verse 28, but he's saying, look, the way in which the kingdom of God is growing now, today, is through the preaching of the gospel, and so it really helps us to understand how this relates even to us today.

This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Lucy in Memphis, Tennessee. Lucy, what's your question for us? Yes, hi, how are you? I am doing well, Lucy. How are you doing?

I'm doing wonderful. My question is, I had someone was arguing about the Holy Spirit. I want to know what the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is saying, the Holy Ghost. Is there a difference between those two, or are they the same?

Yeah, they're the same. I mean, like, if you're reading the the old King James Version of the Bible, sometimes it'll translate Holy Spirit as Holy Ghost, that kind of a thing, but we're talking about the third person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit. God, God, I mean, worthy of worship, praise, equal with the Father and the Son. I mean, this is absolutely clear in various passages of scripture, and we oftentimes will see the three persons of the Holy Trinity brought together. I mean, you think about what Jesus said in Matthew 28, go make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

And so, yep, no difference there between Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost, really referring to the same third person of the Trinity. Thank you for that question, Lucy. If you have a question for us about the Bible or the Christian life, call us in the next 20 minutes or so. Here's the phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Here's a voicemail that we received yesterday. Hi, my question is how you should address your family according to the Bible when your spouse leaves and he divorces you and marries someone else and then completely shuts down every single avenue of communication, your phone, your emails, everything gets blocked. He even stops seeing the children. This is very difficult to be alone and deal with everything. It would be great if you guys could explain what does really mean not divorcing and not remarrying and how do you move forward.

Thank you. Well, sister, my heart goes out to you. I was raised by a single mother, and so I know how difficult it is for someone to raise a family, for a woman to raise a family on her own, and so I definitely want to pray for you. You asked a question about divorce. Jesus has this discussion in Matthew chapter 19, and there he talks about not divorcing except in cases of sexual immorality. There are other passages of scripture that bring up this discussion, though, for example, in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, it talks about a believing spouse being married to a non- believer, and if the non-believer leaves, if they abandon their spouse, well, that spouse is no longer bound to their husband or their wife who abandoned them. Paul says that that individual is free to be married.

Now, I don't know all of the details of your situation, but I do believe that abandonment is a legitimate reason for divorce and that the person who is abandoned is free to be married again. You know, it's so tragic when these kinds of things happen, and when people are left to fend for themselves, and it sounds like that's where you are. I think of the warning that the apostle Paul gave in 1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 8. He said, if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

We talk about really strong language there. Paul says, look, if you're a father, you care for your children, you provide for your family. If you don't, you know, you've denied the faith. You're worse than a non-believer, and so I'm so sorry to hear about this situation. I pray that the Lord gives you wisdom and strength and also provides for you, and so let me pray for you right now, sister. Father, I pray for this dear sister right now as she seeks to love you, to honor you.

I know that she wants to obey you. I pray that you would give her clarity and wisdom and guide her according to your word to follow you, Lord. And Lord, would you provide for each and every one of her needs? Would you strengthen her in her faith? I pray, Lord, that when she feels alone and abandoned, that she would remember the promise that you give to us in your word, that you will never leave us or forsake us, that you are an ever-present help in time of need. Would you give her that sense of your presence? Would you give her strength, provide for her needs, Lord, and most of all, cause the light of your countenance and your love to shine upon her and upon her family?

Give her wisdom, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. By the way, some radio stations air our program on a delayed basis, so if you'd like to call and talk to Pastor Adriel live and ask your question, you want to do that at 11 30 a.m. Pacific, 12 30 Mountain, 1 30 Central, or 2 30 Eastern Time. That's the time when we are taking calls live in the studio. Let's go to Kim in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Kim, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hi.

Well, thank you so much for taking my call. I have a question regarding the Holy Spirit. I've been to many churches, and I finally found my church home. However, every church I've ever been to seems to not focus or even speak on the Holy Spirit, and so I'm wondering why, if we've got God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, why are we focused only on God and Jesus? What is our role or our relationship with the Holy Spirit? How do we best utilize, I don't know if that's the right word, utilize, but interact or, you know, with the Holy Spirit? What is the role of the Holy Spirit? I understand the Holy Spirit encompasses the whole world, even the dark places, but I just... I'm not understanding why there is no focus on that. Why is this subject keeps getting changed?

I love this question, Kim, and, you know, it seems to me like we tend to reckon one of two ditches. Either we just don't focus at all on the Holy Spirit, as you said. Maybe there are churches that tend to talk a lot about Jesus and the redemptive work of Christ. They'll talk about the Father, that kind of a thing, but you don't hear much about the Holy Spirit. Or maybe there are churches that just... it's all about the Holy Spirit, and in particular, they're focused on, you know, the miraculous sign gifts of the Holy Spirit, and have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit, and is the Holy Spirit moving here in our midst, that kind of a thing. We need to understand first and foremost that the Spirit of God primarily here on earth today is testifying to Jesus into the gospel. When Jesus was leaving his disciples, he gave them a series of teachings. We refer to them as the upper room discourse in John 13 through 16, 13 through 17, and he's telling his disciples, I'm about to leave, but you don't have to be afraid. I'm going to send to you another helper, another comforter, the Spirit who's going to be with you always.

He's going to testify of the things that I have told you. So the Spirit of God is present with us right now. Ever since Jesus ascended into heaven, what he did was he poured the Spirit of God out onto the church, onto us, and no one, Kim, can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. That's what Paul says to the Corinthians. So if you're a Christian, the Spirit of God lives in you, we're called to walk according to the Spirit, the Spirit of God illuminates God's word to us so that we understand it, apprehend it, grasp it. Our bodies are called the temple of the Holy Spirit.

This is one of the proof texts for the deity of the Holy Spirit because God is the one who lives in the temple, and so if our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, Paul is saying that the Holy Spirit is God. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 19, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? So really, the Christian life is saturated with the Holy Spirit. We're called to walk according to the Spirit. Paul said this to the Ephesians in Ephesians chapter 5, to be filled with the Spirit. Everything about us, it's the Spirit-filled Christian life. Now, the sad thing is there's a lot of confusion about what that looks like in the church today. How do we get Spirit-filled? Well, it's as the word of Christ dwells in us richly, as we draw near to the Lord, as we understand His word, as we understand the Gospel, as we sing to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord.

Paul talks about this. And so, Kim, I think we have to have the balance of understanding the Spirit of God is at work today in all sorts of ways, ultimately applying the redemption that Jesus accomplished 2,000 years ago to us by His grace. We're united to Jesus. We have this close communion with Jesus.

How? By the Holy Spirit. And so, it really is wonderful. And you can't escape the teaching of the Bible from the beginning to the end without coming into contact with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God inspired the Scriptures, the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis chapter one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

You get right there at the very beginning. And so, I think we need to recover a right understanding of the Holy Spirit, and especially that focus on the fact that the Spirit of God is illuminating the Word of God and fixing our eyes on Jesus, testifying of His gospel. If we understand the gospel, if we confess Jesus is Lord, it's because the Spirit is at work in our hearts. Thank you for your question, Kim.

Thanks so much, Kim. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We are very excited to announce a brand new Bible study we want to offer you. It's on the book of Revelation. Yes, I mentioned yesterday that this study was written by one of my professors that I had in seminary, a godly man, a New Testament scholar, theologian, really, and he's written this amazing resource on the book of Revelation. We know that there are so many questions about this book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, about the end times, about the second coming, and so that's where we've put this resource together. It's something that you can go through on your own, by yourself, just wanting to dig in, maybe in your personal devotions into this book, the book of Revelation, or with a group of friends.

Get together with a Bible study group or a Sunday school class, that kind of a thing. We know that this resource is really going to bless you, edify you, and it's yours for a gift of $20 or more. This study will help you understand one of the most challenging books of the Bible, and to request your copy of the Revelation study, just go to corechristianity.com forward slash revelation, or call us at 1-833-843-2673. Again, corechristianity.com forward slash revelation, or call us at 1-833-the-core. Let's go to a voicemail we received from one of our listeners named Anthony. Question. Question.

I cannot get an answer for this. The scripture read deeply. Jesus's real name was Yahshua, which in Aramaic means true salvation, Yahweh means true life. Jesus's name, Jesus, is supposedly only about 650 years old. Who decided to call him Jesus? Who had your destiny to change our Creator's Son's name? Yeah, well, Jesus is just the English translation of Yahshua, or Jesus in Greek. In my mind, and I think that this is clear according to the teachings of the scripture, it's not the pronunciation.

That's not where the power is, brother. It's not in, oh, I've pronounced the name of God right. The Jehovah's Witnesses get really tripped up about this. They really make a big deal of the fact that, oh, well, the name Jehovah has been taken out of the English translation of the Bible. It's Lord in all caps, but it should be Jehovah, the divine name. Well, the Hebrews in ancient times, they wouldn't even say the divine name.

They wouldn't speak it. So we have to be careful that we don't think that the divine name or Jesus or Yahshua or Jesus is some sort of talisman or word that we can just chant, and it has this spiritual power associated with it in that sense. I think of this scene in the book of Acts. Acts 19, beginning in verse 11.

Listen to this story, because I think it really illustrates the point that I'm trying to make. God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them. And the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.

Jesus there is the Greek translation. Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Siva were doing this, but the evil spirit answered them, Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you? And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.

Yikes. Kind of a creepy story, but these guys, they're trying to invoke the name of Jesus. They're treating Jesus's name like a sort of talisman of protection. If we just say the name of Jesus, we'll be able to cast out devils like Paul and the rest of the apostles, that kind of a thing.

And what does the evil spirit say to these itinerant Jewish exorcists? Look, I know Paul, and I know Jesus. I don't know you. The question is not, do you pronounce the name Jesus, Jesus, Yeshua correctly? The question is, do you know Jesus?

Do you have a personal relationship with him? Do you trust in him by faith? That's where the power is. That's where the work of the Holy Spirit is. The Spirit of God, as I said earlier, grants us the grace to confess that Jesus is Lord. And when we believe in Jesus, we're united to him by faith.

We have this personal relationship. Christianity is not this sort of superstitious religion where we do these rituals and say these names and utter these prayers, even the sinner's prayer, quote, unquote. And something magic happens, and we're good to go. We're sealed.

We're protected from all the devils. No. The question is, do you really trust in Jesus? Do you believe in him? Have you received him? Do you have a personal relationship with him?

And so we have to recognize that. We want to be really careful that we don't think, I got it right because I pronounce the name Yeshua correctly. Do you know Yeshua?

That's the question we need to ask ourselves. Do you believe in him? Have you received him for the forgiveness of your sins? If you have, praise the Lord. If Christianity for you, as it is for so many people, is this sort of superstitious thing of going through these rituals and checking a box and getting my fire insurance that kind of a thing. Well, we have to take a step back and say, no, Lord, I need to know you.

I want to know you personally. And that was the problem with these itinerant exorcists in Acts chapter 19. They didn't know Jesus personally.

They were just invoking his name. We have to be careful that that's not us. Thank you for that question. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We have time for one more question.

Debbie from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. What's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hi, and God bless both of you. I have a quick question about speaking in tongues. I've known the Lord for quite a few years, a lot of years.

And of course, I've heard of people speaking in tongues and having their own prayer language from the very beginning. And I just find everything that God had for me. And I remember asking and asking the Lord for that, because of course, you think that's even that's something extra and never received that at all, not a hint of it.

I couldn't make it happen. So my question is, is that he's not a bearer of persons. He doesn't have favorites. So what is this? What is, why would some have it and totally just seem to be so blessed by it? And it just creates that much more with the Lord. And then some don't.

Yeah. Debbie, I love your heart, your desire to have everything, to receive everything that the Lord has for you. And Paul makes it absolutely clear at the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 12, that not everyone is gifted in the same way. Now there's a bigger question of, you know, are those sign gifts still around for today? But even setting that question aside, we know for certain that not everyone has the same gift. Paul says, you know, in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? It's a rhetorical question.

The answer that he expects is no. That's the beauty of the body of Christ. We're each gifted in unique ways. And Debbie, you have gifts that God has given to you. Maybe those are hospitality, service, helps. I'm not sure what those gifts are, but you can rest assured that he does love you and that he has gifted you for the good of his body so that you can be a blessing to others. Thank you so much, sister, for that question. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.