The Risen Christ Heals and Calls Israel to Repentance

ὄνομα means name, but in the biblical world a name is not merely a label — it is an identity, an authority, a character in concentrated form. The NT inherits this Hebrew understanding from the OT's dense name theology: to name something is to define it, to call upon a name is to invoke the reality behind it, and to act 'in someone's name' is to act with their delegated authority.

The word carries this weight in almost every significant NT use. When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray 'hallowed be your name' (Matt 6:9), he is not asking that people speak respectfully of God — he is asking that God's character and reputation be held in the esteem they deserve across the whole creation. When he says 'whatever you ask in my name' (John 14:13-14), the phrase 'in my name' does not function as a formula to append to prayer but as a description of praying in accordance with who Jesus is and what he stands for — from his authority, under his character.

The name Christology of Philippians 2:9-11 is the NT apex of ὄνομα theology: the exalted Christ receives 'the name that is above every name,' and at that name every knee bows. Paul is not saying Jesus receives a new word to be spoken; he is saying Jesus receives the identity and authority that the name YHWH carries — an authority before which the whole cosmos bows.

The name above every name is God's own name, now given to the crucified and risen Jesus.

Peripateo means to walk, and in many New Testament contexts it moves from literal movement to the conduct, pattern, or direction of life. The selected passages show that figurative walking is never vague lifestyle language. Jesus promises that the one who follows Him will not walk in darkness. Romans says believers walk in newness of life because they have been united with Christ in death and resurrection.

Paul says the church walks by faith, walks by the Spirit, walks worthy of its calling, and walks in love after Christ's self-giving pattern. For pastoral teaching, peripateo names embodied discipleship over time: life ordered by Christ, faith, the Spirit, calling, and love rather than by darkness, flesh, or sight.

Παῖς can mean child, boy, servant, or attendant. Its range requires close attention because English must often choose one sense where Greek preserves the same form. Matthew uses it for the boys killed under Herod's violent order. A royal official's παῖς is his boy in John 4, while the centurion's suffering παῖς may be understood as a servant or dependent. Mary's song calls Israel God's servant, and Acts proclaims Jesus as God's glorified Servant, drawing on the scriptural servant pattern.

The noun does not make “child” and “servant” interchangeable theological ideas. Relationship, age, social setting, possessive construction, and Old Testament echoes guide translation. The shared range can illuminate dependence and belonging, but it must not hide exploitation or blur Jesus' unique servant identity.

δοξάζω is the verb of glorification — to give or ascribe δόξα (glory) to someone, to honor them, to magnify their reputation and being. The word derives from δόξα, which in classical Greek meant 'opinion' or 'reputation' but in the LXX and NT carries the full weight of the Hebrew כָּבוֹד (glory, weightiness, the visible manifestation of divine honor and presence).

δοξάζω therefore means not merely 'to praise' or 'to think well of' but to recognize and declare the actual weight of what is being honored — to name glory where glory is present, to give visible expression to the divine radiance that is already there. The verb appears 61 times in the NT and operates at three distinct levels that John's Gospel holds in a uniquely concentrated way.

First, the human level: Jesus's healings cause people to δοξάζω God (Matt 9:8, Luke 13:13) — they recognize in what Jesus has done the weight of God's presence and give it its appropriate naming. Second, the divine level: the Father δοξάζω-s the Son and the Son δοξάζω-s the Father (John 17:1-5) — the mutual glorification within the Trinity is the eternal form of which human praise is the temporal echo.

Third — and this is the Johannine stroke of genius — the moment of Jesus's greatest humiliation is the moment of his deepest glorification. 'The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified' (John 12:23) introduces the passion prediction about the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies. The cross is the moment of glorification. John's theology of the cross is not despite the suffering but through it and as it: the lifting up on the cross is the lifting up in glory (John 3:14, 8:28, 12:32-34).

The preacher who holds δοξάζω in John has a word that refuses the separation between the crucifixion and the exaltation — they are not sequential stages but the same event read at different depths.

ἅγιος names holiness as belonging to God, being set apart for Him, and sharing the moral distinctness that flows from His character. The word can describe God Himself, Christ as the Holy One, the Holy Spirit, the holy calling given by grace, and the saints who belong to God. In the Pastoral Epistles, holiness is not decorative religion. It is tied to salvation before time began, the indwelling Spirit who guards the entrusted treasure, mercy that renews, and practical service among the saints.

Holiness therefore begins with God, is secured in Christ, is formed by the Spirit, and becomes visible in a consecrated life.

δίκαιος describes what is righteous, just, or upright according to God's standard. It can describe people, God, Christ, a judge, a command, or conduct that conforms to what is right. In the Pastoral Epistles, the word appears negatively in 1 Timothy 1:9, where law is not laid down for the righteous but for the lawless, and positively in Titus 1:8, where an overseer must be upright.

The same family of language also appears in 2 Timothy 4:8 when Paul names the Lord as the righteous Judge. The adjective therefore presses character and verdict together. It does not flatter people as naturally righteous, because Romans says no one is righteous apart from grace. It also does not erase real uprightness, because Christ is the Righteous One and His people are called to practice righteousness.

Archegos names a leading originator, founder, author, prince, or pioneer figure. It occurs only a few times in the New Testament, but every use is Christologically weighty. Peter says Israel killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead, and later says God exalted Jesus as Prince and Savior to grant repentance and forgiveness. Hebrews says God made the author of salvation perfect through suffering, and then calls Jesus the author and perfecter of faith.

The word does not present Jesus as a distant example only. It presents Him as the living source, leader, and saving pioneer whose suffering, resurrection, exaltation, and completed work secure the path for His people.

πίστις means faith, trust, or faithfulness, and in the Pastoral Epistles it carries both personal reliance on Christ and the entrusted body of apostolic truth. The word can describe sincere faith, the faith that receives salvation in Christ Jesus, faith held with a clear conscience, faith that can be shipwrecked, faith some abandon, and the faith Paul has kept to the end.

It can also describe the faith of God's elect and the faithful conduct that adorns the teaching about God our Savior. This range requires careful teaching. Paul is not using πίστις as bare religious sincerity. Faith has an object: Christ Jesus. Faith also has a moral companion: a good conscience. Faith can be nourished by Scripture, guarded against false teaching, modeled across generations, and persevered in through suffering.

In these letters, faith is personal and doctrinal, received and guarded, confessed and lived. It is not works-righteousness, but neither is it empty profession. Pastoral teaching should help readers trust Christ, hold the apostolic faith, keep conscience clear, resist shipwreck, and finish the race.

μετανοέω is built from μετά (after, change) and νοέω (to perceive, to think). Literally it denotes a change of mind or perception. But in the New Testament, the word carries far greater weight than intellectual reconsideration. It is the decisive reorientation of the whole person: turning from sin, turning toward God, with life change following as necessary consequence. It is not primarily a feeling. It is a direction.

The New Testament uses μετανοέω consistently for the response God demands of sinners. John the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostles all open their preaching with the call to repent. Mark 1:15 pairs it inseparably with faith: repent and believe. The two are not sequential stages but two sides of the same gospel response. Turning from is turning toward. The person who genuinely turns from sin is turning toward Christ; the person who genuinely trusts Christ is turning from reliance on self.

The synonym μεταμέλομαι (G3338) is instructive. It names remorse or regret after the fact, an emotional experience of sorrow over what one has done. Judas experienced μεταμέλομαι in Matthew 27:3, felt remorse, yet was not restored. Peter's restoration was the fruit of μετανοέω. Second Corinthians 7:10 holds the two together: godly grief produces μετάνοια (repentance) that leads to salvation, while worldly grief produces death. Sorrow may accompany repentance, but sorrow is not repentance.

Repentance in the NT is a gift from God, not a human achievement. Acts 5:31 and 11:18 say that God grants repentance. Second Timothy 2:25 says God may grant repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. This removes pride from repentance and grounds it in grace. The person who has repented has been given something, not merely exercised sufficient willpower.

The Revelation letters (chs. 2-3) show that μετανοέω is not only for initial conversion. The risen Christ calls established churches, already in covenant relationship with Him, to repent of specific failures: losing first love, tolerating false teaching, lukewarmness. Repentance is the ongoing posture of the believer before the Lord, not merely the doorway into the Christian life.

ἐπιστρέφω is the Greek verb that translates the Hebrew שׁוּב; to turn, to return, to convert. It is the verb of repentance in its most concrete spatial form: not a feeling of sorrow (that is μετανοέω, G3340) but the actual bodily turn of direction, the movement of a person who was going one way and now goes another. The local Greek index currently counts about 36 occurrences for exact Strong's ID G1994, and the verb carries the full weight of OT repentance theology.

In the LXX it is the primary translation of שׁוּב (to turn, return), the verb that the prophets used when they called Israel to return to the Lord: 'Return to me and I will return to you' (Mal 3:7, Zech 1:3). That prophetic idiom of return enters the NT directly. Luke 1:16-17 describes John the Baptist's mission as turning (ἐπιστρέφω) many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God, echoing Malachi 3 and 4 explicitly.

Acts uses ἐπιστρέφω as the standard vocabulary for conversion: people 'turned to the Lord' (Acts 9:35, 11:21), 'turned to God from idols' (1 Thess 1:9), and Saul is sent to turn Gentiles 'from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God' (Acts 26:18). This is the primary NT conversion verb. But ἐπιστρέφω is not only an evangelistic term. Luke 22:32 uses it for Peter's post-denial restoration: 'when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.'

The movement described here is the re-orientation of a disciple who has already followed Jesus, departed from faithfulness, and must turn back. This gives the word a pastoral register alongside its evangelistic one. The preacher who holds both dimensions has a verb that covers the whole arc of the believing life: the first turn toward God in conversion and the repeated turns back to him in repentance and renewal throughout the life of faith.

G1813 means to wipe away, blot out, or erase. In its New Testament settings, the word is used with the range and pressure described by its local passages rather than by a bare gloss alone. It is used for sins being wiped away, a debt record being canceled, a name not being blotted out, and tears being wiped away by God. The object changes the meaning. This companion therefore treats the word as a Scripture-governed guide, not as a shortcut around exegesis.

It helps teachers speak concretely about forgiveness, assurance, and final comfort. It should help readers ask better questions of the passage: who is speaking or acting, what covenant or gospel reality is in view, and how the surrounding context limits or strengthens the claim. Sins, debt, names, and tears should not be merged into one undifferentiated image.

Prophetes names a prophet, one who speaks for God, bears witness to His word, and in many contexts announces what God has revealed about judgment, mercy, and promised fulfillment. The New Testament uses the term for Israel's prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus' prophetic reception by the crowds, church prophets, false prophets in contrast, and the prophetic witness fulfilled in Christ.

The word should not be reduced to prediction, though prediction may be present. Hebrews 1:1 says God spoke through the prophets in many ways, while Luke 24:27 shows Jesus explaining Moses and the Prophets as Scripture that speaks about Him. For pastoral teaching, prophetes opens reverence for God's spoken word, continuity with the Old Testament witness, Christ-centered fulfillment, and careful testing of every claimed message by apostolic Scripture.