The names we call others provide a snapshot of our relationship. It is drastically different, for example, to hear a child refer to an adult as “Mr. Smith,” “Officer Thomas,” or “Daddy.”
Names and titles matter throughout the Scriptures, and I’ve recently started a project examining the use of titles and names for Jesus in the Gospels. My first article laid out my methodology and looked at the top 10 titles of Jesus in the Gospels.
In this article we’ll consider the titles used for Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.
Top 5 Titles
By my accounting, there are 131 titles used for Jesus in Matthew. There are 443 in all four Gospels, so the titles in Matthew account for about 29.6% of the all titles. (Matthew contains about 28% of the verses in the Gospels.)
Here are the top 5 titles in Matthew.
- Son of Man (30 times)
- Lord (23 times)
- Christ (13 times)
- teacher (10 times)
- the child (9 times)
The next few entries on the list are also interesting: Son of David (8 times), Son of God (8 times), and Son (6 times). The top four titles used in Matthew are the same as the top four titles used in all the Gospels, just in a slightly different order.
Perhaps also of interest: the title “Lord” comes from Peter five times, and five of the 13 uses of “Christ” are by Matthew himself.
Titles Used by Matthew
Most of the titles used in the Gospels are put in the mouth of someone else by the Gospel author. But there are times when the author himself refers to a name or title of Jesus.
There are ten such occasions in Matthew. He refers to Jesus as “Christ” five times, as “the child” four times, and as the “Son of David” once. Nine of these occasions are found within the first two chapters of the Gospel; the other one (“the Christ”) is found in Matthew 11:2.
Old Testament References and “the child”
Matthew is the only Gospel writer who uses titles for Jesus within Old Testament quotations. He does this five times.
- Immanuel (Matt 1:23)
- ruler (Matt 2:6)
- son (Matt 2:15)
- servant (Matt 12:18)
- beloved (Matt 12:18)
Another unique aspect of Matthew is that he is the only Gospel writer who uses the title/role “the child” to refer to Jesus—and he does this nine times. These all occur in the second chapter of Matthew, as we learn of the prophecy about the coming Messiah. This title is used by Matthew four times, by an angel of the Lord four times, and once by Herod.
Relation to Matthew’s Purpose
In my co-blogger Peter Krol’s series on the feeding of the 5000, he provided a nice overview of Matthew. In my article about the resurrection of Jesus in Matthew, I summarized Peter’s work this way.
Matthew wrote to convince his audience that Jesus was the king of the Jews. He spends much of his book explaining the kingdom of heaven and its subjects.
Given this purpose, it might be surprising not to find a title like “king” among the most-used in Matthew. (The title “king of the Jews” is only used four times in Matthew.)
We must remember, when looking at these titles of Jesus that I’ve compiled, that everything must be examined in context. We cannot draw any concrete conclusions by just counting occurrences or omissions. Further, different authors write differently—some might use titles more frequently, others might display Jesus as the king by showing him in kingly settings or performing kingly acts.
In what we have discussed so far, Matthew’s purpose is not hard to see. He is writing to a people who understood the Old Testament prophets, so references to “the child” (from Is 7:14) and other OT titles would situate Jesus within a rich, expectant tradition.
Matthew himself calls Jesus the “Son of David” once, and this title is used a total of eight times in this Gospel. (It is only used 12 times total in all Gospels.) We will explore these titles in a later article, but “Son of David,” “Son of God” (8 times), and even “Son” (6 times) are all royal titles. Even though the word “king” is not present, the first hearers of Matthew would have known Jesus was being described as the king.
Reading to Know Jesus
Looking at the titles used for Jesus can be interesting and illuminating, but let’s not leave it as a mere intellectual exercise. Matthew was not just writing to convey information; he wanted his readers to know that Jesus is the king of Israel.
By the titles he used, we know that Matthew did not just think of Jesus as a historical figure. He was the Christ, the promised Messiah, the one sent to save his people from their sins (Matt 1:21).
Leave a Reply