Q29. Why is the Son of God called Jesus, meaning Savior?

The second part of the Creed turns to the subject of the Mediator. The doctrine of the Mediator has two main components: one concerns His person, and the other concerns His office. The two articles addressing His person read: and in Jesus Christ his only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary. The four articles that follow, leading up to the article on the Holy Spirit, address the office of the Mediator. That office itself divides into two parts: His humiliation, through which He merits our salvation; and His glorification, through which that salvation becomes effective. In His humiliation, Christ is the one who earns our redemption; in His glorification, He is the one who applies it. The fourth article addresses His humiliation: Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; he descended into hell. The fifth and sixth articles address His glorification: The third day he arose from the dead; ascended into heaven; sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. The seventh article, which looks ahead to His coming to judge the world, concerns the completion of His glory, at that final moment when God will be all in all.

It's clear from everything we've discussed just how carefully and wisely the articles of the Creed were composed, and how well they are arranged around the question of the Mediator. His humiliation, which is the first part of His office, moves through these stages: He suffered, was crucified, died, was buried, and descended into hell. We descend gradually from one degree to the next until we reach the lowest point of His humiliation, which is expressed in the article about His descent into hell. The second part of His office, His glorification, then ascends gradually from lesser glory to greater, until it reaches its highest point in His exaltation at the right hand of God. The same careful ordering and wisdom appear in the first part of the Creed, and again in the third part, where the benefits that Christ purchased and applies to us through the Holy Spirit are laid out in a beautifully ordered sequence. These benefits are, in a sense, the fruit that grows from the preceding articles. Christ's office differs from His benefits in the way a cause differs from its effect, or an antecedent from its consequence. The benefits are the actual things Christ has purchased and now bestows on us: the forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation. His office is the work of obtaining and delivering those things.

And in Jesus: that is, I believe in Jesus Christ. The words I believe must be repeated here, because just as we believe in God the Father, so we also believe in the Son of God, as Scripture makes clear: "You believe in God; believe also in me." "Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me." "I and the Father are one." "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." "That all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father" (John 14:1, 11; 10:30; 6:29; 3:36; 5:23). This is a solid, well-grounded argument for the true divinity of the Son, because faith in this form is worship that belongs to God alone.