What Is the Name That Is above All Names?

In this brief clip from his teaching series What Did Jesus Do?, R.C. Sproul reflects on the name that is above all names.

Transcript

Remember when Jesus was in the upper room the night before His execution? That night that He established the Lord's Supper and He went through that lengthy prayer—the High Priestly Prayer it is called. Do you remember one of the things that Jesus asked for in that prayer? He asked the Father to restore to Him the glory that He had with the Father from the beginning. He said, “I've done my mission. I've been obedient. Now Father, glorify your Son with the glory that He had with you from the foundation of the world.” And this is exactly what God does with Jesus at the completion of His work. There is an endpoint to His indignity. There is a completion to His humiliation that starts so starkly with His birth.

“Therefore, hath God highly exalted Him and given to Him a name that is above every name.” (Phil. 2:9)

Now in other series that we've done, we've looked carefully at the names and titles that are used for Jesus in the New Testament, which are rich indeed and inspiring to us. But so often when Christians read this passage, they assume that what is being said here is that the name that is above every name is the name Jesus_._ But that's not what the text is saying. What the text is saying is that God has highly exalted Him to such a degree that at the name of Jesus, when you hear the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue should confess what? That He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The name that is above every name is that title that belongs only to God. That title Adonai that refers to God as the sovereign one—that is the title that is revealed that belongs to Christ. Because of His humiliation, because of His perfect obedience in the role of a slave, God moves heaven and earth to exalt His Son, gives Him the name that is above every name, so that when you hear the name of Jesus, your impulse should be to be on your knees and confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father.