God has a Reputation to Uphold
A
person has a personality, and can be esteemed or dishonored. You cannot
insult an impersonal object or love a force. God demands to be
honored as a person.
1
Samuel 2:30 “...But now the Lord says: ‘Far be it from Me; for those who honor Me I will honor,and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.” NKJV
Psalms 33:8
“Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.” NKJV
Habakkuk
2:20 “But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him” NKJV
God
is jealous of His reputation
Psalms
138:2 “You have exalted Your name and Your promise above everything else.” HCSB
Dr.
W. L. Craig i
“In so conceiving of God in this way, the Judeo-Christian
tradition is quite unlike the rest of the world’s religions. For
example, the pantheistic religions of the Orient, such as Hinduism,
conceive of God as infinite, but not personal – he is just the
Absolute, some sort of undifferentiated principle, but not a person.
By contrast, in the religions of Greece and Rome that were
fashionable during the time the New Testament was written, the gods
and goddesses were personal beings (Zeus, Aphrodite, Athena, and all
the rest were certainly personal beings). But they were finite,
humanoid supermen and women cavorting about. They weren’t infinite
beings, but they were personal. In contrast to both of these, the
Scripture teaches that God is both infinite and personal.”
When
God interacts with us and makes promises, gives His word and answers
prayers He is interacting as only a personal Being could.
His Name is Holy
As
God is a Person, He has a name.
Exodus 3:14-15 “ God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”
God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.” HCSB
Deuteronomy
18:19-20 I will hold accountable whoever does not listen to My words that he speaks in My name. But the prophet who dares to speak a message in My name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods—that prophet must die.’’ HCSB
Psalm 138:2 I
will worship toward Your holy temple, And praise Your name For Your
lovingkindness and Your truth; For You have magnified Your word above
all Your name. NKJV
Recall the commandment given to Moses:
Exodus 20:7
“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the
LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” NKJV
Psalm 29:2
“Ascribe to the LORD the glory due to His Name; worship the LORD in
holy array.” HCSB
In Malachi chapter 2, God demands His name is taken seriously, even to threaten the priests that He will send a curse to them and their descendents. Ascribe to Yahweh the glory due His name; worship Yahweh in the splendor of His holiness. Continuing with the dialog between
God and the Priests of the temple in Malachi 1, God asks the priests “Where is
my honor?” He demands that His name be honored. So, let us understand His names and their meanings.
Honoring God's Name as a Christian
For Christians today there is a special warning. We still deal with false prophets who claim to hear from God directly and we need to test their words against the inerrant word of God. More to the point, we need to be careful ourselves not to presume we have special insight or hear a 'word' from the Lord without first comparing it to scripture. Be skeptical of anyone who tells you they had a vision or a dream that gave them the "answer" to some question. It may be true, but if any vision or dream is not carefully tested by scripture is suspect.
Never make the claim that you have "prayed about" something and you have peace about a decision if it directly contradicts clear and plain instructions in the Bible. That in this authors opinion is the modern day equivalent of violating the third commandment and using the Lord's name in vain (in futility) (in disrespect). More times than I care to remember someone has justified an immoral or irrational decision on "praying on" something and saying the Lord has "blessed it". For a more indepth discourse on this see the post Decision Making and God's Will
As we discuss God's name, let's examine the different names used in scripture and understand their meanings and purpose.
YHWH
This is the name God states He is to be remembered with from generation to generation with the "I AM" statement in Exodus 3:15. Ironically, in ancient Israel,
the name of God was held in such high esteem that it was forbidden to be directly
spoken. In its written form, the “tetragrammaton” “YHWH” was not
pronounceable.
Jesus literally stated He was the "I AM" and this is what enraged the people so much they picked up stones to kill Him. Jesus claimed to be God Almighty, and the crowd
understood exactly what he meant:
John 8:58-59
“Jesus said to them, ‘Truly truly I say to you, before Abraham
was, I AM’. So they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid
himself...”. NKJV
Adonai (A’don)
Instead of speaking the tetragrammaton “YHWH” that was sacred, the more "polite" name Adonai was used in everyday language. Modern English Bibles use the LORD in all caps to signify YHWH, which in turn is substituted for Adonai, which is associated with the Father, the “I AM” from Exodus 3:14.
Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord (Adonai) bless you and keep you; The Lord (Adonai) make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; The Lord (Adonai) look upon you with favor, and give you peace.” NKJV
Elohim
This construct is
used over 2200 times in the Bible, and many times it is intentionally
grammatically incorrect! This is a ‘plural’ noun, like “seraph”
becomes “seraphim”. However, in the very first verse of the
Bible, we get an insight into the Holy Trinity and unity of purpose
and action in God’s creation of our universe:
Genesis 1:1
“Bra’sheet barak Elohim” In the beginning “Gods” created... (singular verb, plural subject)
Also again in
Genesis 1:26, it is even translated from the plural “Let us
make man in our own image...”
Again in Genesis
11 in reference to the Tower of Babel, “Let us go down and
confound their language...”
In a number of cases where the plural subject (noun) is used, it is not actually El Elyon (the Most High) that is in view. Elohim also can also just mean "gods" in reference to pagan worship and false deities or "godhood".
For an interesting study on this topic, and scriptures where the use of Elohim does not mean YHWH, see: Logos.com - Who Are the Elohim? The Answer Might Rattle Your Theology
El Elyon (God Most High)
Genesis 14:18-20 Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine; he was a priest to God Most High. He blessed him and said: Abram is blessed by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and I give praise to God Most High who has handed over your enemies to you. And Abram gave him a tenth of everything NKJV
Daniel 7:9 refers to God being seated on the throne and Lord of time.
El Sh’dai (The Almighty One)
references God as
“the almighty One” Used in Genesis 17:1.
Yeshua (Joshua, Jesus)
In ancient Israel, at
the Feast of Trumpets, which we call Rosh Hashannah (Yom Teruah) the
Jewish New Year was celebrated in Sept/Oct. This was instituted in
Leviticus 23:23-25, and is celebrated by an elaborate ceremony of
blowing trumpets. These are actually ram’s horns (teki’at
shofar).
There are many prophetic symbols around this feast and it
memorializes the “giving of the Law” in Exodus 19:13. This same
word for trumpet is used in 1 Thess 4:16, when the Lord descends from
heaven with a shout and the “trumpet of God”. It is rumored that
at this ceremony, during the last series of the trumpet blasts, with
the crowd cheering, the high priest, lays prostrate on the ground in
the temple whispers the name “Yeshua”; the true and unspeakable
name of God.
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Scripture citations are from: Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) © 2009 Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville TN or New King James Version®. (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson
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