What is His name?

Master

Harry Foster

This one English word is given as the rendering for various titles which His contemporaries applied to the Lord Jesus. The most common of them is the word which really signifies Teacher. The Hebrew counterpart is Rabbi (John 1:38).

There is nothing unusual about the actual word. It is applied to the 'doctors' with whom the boy Jesus reasoned in the temple; it was used by Christ to describe Nicodemus, the 'master of Israel'; and it is the word employed concerning those in the churches who had the spiritual gift of teachers (Ephesians 4:11). But the Lord took up the general word and gave it a unique significance to those who were proud to acknowledge themselves as His disciples. To them there was only one who could be their Teacher in the things of God.

Saul of Tarsus once had the great Gamaliel as his teacher, and he described the relationship by saying that he had been brought up "at the feet" of this great rabbi (Acts 22:3). The Scriptures make use of this same phrase, telling of those who were glad to sit at the feet of Jesus. Mary of Bethany was prominent in this respect, and this is how we always remember her.

When Martha sent her the message: "The Master is come, and he calleth for thee", she knew at once who had arrived and went out to voice her doubts and perplexities from this same position -- at His feet (John 11:32). Equally the Jerusalem householder, when told that the Master was asking for the promised guest chamber, responded instantly and with all his heart to this request. There was no need for names. For him there was only one Teacher.

All human teachers have their limitations. It seems that in the temple the Lord Jesus, though only twelve years old, had to supply the answers to the questions which He Himself had posed. There were things that the great doctors did not know. This was certainly true in the case of Nicodemus, as the Lord Himself had to point out to the great teacher who had arrived and opened the conversation with the words: "We know...". He clearly did not know the things of the Spirit (John 3:10).

Only Jesus knows it all. He is truly our Teacher. For this reason the most experienced of us had far better maintain our place at the feet of Jesus as His disciples. The would-be teacher can often finish up by exposing not only his limitations but his contradictions (James 3:1).

The last use of the title is perhaps the most moving and inspiring. When the unrecognised Saviour revealed Himself to Mary by the simple utterance of her name, she turned swiftly to Him and exclaimed: ‘Rabboni’ (John 20.16). John tells us that what she really said was just ‘Teacher’, but we know something of the ardent devotion that she put into that one word. It is not what we say but how we say it that matters.

Toward the Mark Vol. 3, No. 4, July - Aug. 1974.

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