December 13, 2009 am
A STUDY OF GOD (13)
THE NAMES OF GOD
Today we resume our study of God, coming
to what will be the final section of our study.
Thus far we have established the existence of God and why we
should accept the God of the Bible; And we have identified a number of
different attributes of God and noted what we can learn from them.
In our final section we want to address some other questions:
1) Are Jesus and the Holy Spirit
God?
2) Challenging
questions about God (Why does He allow evil? Why does He allow
suffering? Will He really
condemn souls to hell?)
3) How does God work
today?
4) What should our
response be to Him?
Names are important.
A name is an identifier of who you are.
Proverbs 22:1 says, “A
good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, loving favor rather
than silver and gold.” We ought to take the preservation of our
names seriously. AND we
ought to take the name of God equally serious.
In the Bible, names were important.
Any time someone was instructed to name a child a specific name
it meant something.
·
Genesis
17:19, Sarah was told she was going to have a son (at 90 years old),
“and you shall call his name Isaac.”
Isaac means, “laughter”
·
Isaiah
7:14, “Therefore the Lord Himself
will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear sa Son,
and you shall call His name Immanuel.” We know what “Immanuel”
means, “God with us” (Mattt. 1:23)
·
Luke 1:13,
“You shall call his name John”.
John means “the grace or mercy of the Lord” (Hitchcock)
·
In
addition to this, many names used in the Bible are based upon
characteristics of those individuals.
For example: Abram means “high father” while Abraham means
“father of a great multitude” (Cf. Gen. 17:5); Jacob means “supplanter”;
Joshua means “savior” (same as Jesus); Moses means “taken out, drawn
forth”, Melchizedek – “King of righteousness” (Heb. 7:2), etc.
If you will take time to learn
the meanings of Bible names, you will be surprised as to how much you
will know about who is who.
·
Interestingly, MOST of the
prophets had names that related them to God.
That is - a portion of their name
included one of the names of God (primarily, YHWH and Elohim).
For example - Elijah means “God
the Lord” (Having both El and Yah in the name), Jeremiah – exaltation of
the LORD (YHWH), Isaiah – the salvation of the LORD (YHWH); Ezekiel –
the strength of God (El); Daniel – judgment of God (El), Obadiah –
Servant of the LORD (YHWH), etc. (See
Hitchcock Bible Names Dictionary, Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1870)
In the case of God, the names ascribed to
Him help identify who He is.
There are many names of God in the Bible.
In the Bible often names were significant in that they identified
the person.
The names of God
are worthy of consideration.
They reveal much about Him.
Often He indentified Himself so that others would know about Him.
We will see that as this lesson progresses.
But before we move on, consider Psalm 22:22, “I
will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I
will praise You.” And
John 17:6 as Jesus prayed to the Father, He said, “I have manifested
Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world.”
Later, as recorded in vs. 26 Jesus said, “And I have declared to
them Your name and will declare it…”
a.
El
- The first term to consider is a general term for a god, any god
(deity). The word is used
about 200 times in the Old Testament. At times it is used of idols and
the gods of foreign lands. (Exodus 15:11, 34:14, . Also Deut. 4:28).
But most often it is used of Jehovah God Also used of Jehovah God
– Psalm 5:4, “For
You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, Nor shall evil dwell
with You.”
Gen. 46:3, “I
am God, the God of your father; do not fear to go down to Egypt…”
Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that he
should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent.”
Isaiah 9:6 says, “For unto
us a child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be
upon His shoulder. And His
name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
b.
Elyon – “God most High” –
Gen. 14:20, “And blessed be the God Most Hihg, who has delivered your
enemies into your hand”; Psalm 7:17, “I
will praise the Lord according to His righteousness, and will sing
praise to the name of the LORD Most High.”
c.
El
Shaddai – Used some 48
times in the Old Testament -
God almighty – Gen.
17:1-2, to Abraham at 99 years of age we read, “I am Almighty God, walk
before Me and be blameless.”
Exodus 6:3, “I appeared to
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God
Almighty, but by My name Lord
I was not know to them.”
d.
Elohim – used more than
2500 times in the Old Testament, some 32 times in Genesis 1 alone.
It is a noun that describes God in one of its plural forms.
Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created…”
Gen. 1:26, “Then
God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…”
e.
Elohay Elohim – “God of
gods” – Deut. 10:17, “For the Lord
your God is God of gods and
Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no
partiality nor takes a bribe.”
a.
Jehovah is
described as, “the covenant name of God.” Vine’s says, “God chose it as
His personal name by which he related specifically to His chosen or
covenant people.”
he term which is used some 6800+ times in the Old Testament always
refers to the God of Israel. In
English Bibles that make a distinction, the word is often translated
LORD (In all Capital letters).
Note: The ASV actually uses the word Jehovah most of the time.
NOTE: What is interesting about the word Jehovah is that the Jews
believed the name was “too sacred to pronounce”, which is why it is
found as “YHWH” or “YHVH” in the Hebrew language.
Out of reverence, they when they came across this word in the Old
Law, they would replace it with Adonai, which means Lord in a more
common usage. Consider
Exodus 3:14 where Moses is told by the LORD what to say when asked,
“What is His name?” We read,
“And God (Elohim) said to Moses,
“I AM WHO I AM”. And He
said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me
to you.” What is
interesting is that the Hebrew word, while not exact is very similar to
the tetragrammaton (the 4 letter word YHWH) with a difference of only 1
letter. This has caused some
to define the word Jehovah as possibly meaning, “to be”(See The New
Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, Inter-Varsity Press, © 1996)
b.
First
found in Genesis 2:4, where it is combined with El, “This
is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in
the day that the LORD God
made the earth and the heavens…”
Genesis 12:8 speaking of Abraham says, “And
he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his
tent with Bethel of the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar
to the LORD and called on the
name of the LORD.”
Exodus 3:2, “And the angel of the
LORD appeared to him in a
flame of fire in the midst of a bush.”
c.
The word
YHWH, like El, is often used in conjunction with other words which
describe various aspects of God.
Perhaps you have heard of some of these:
i.
Jehvoah Jireh – “The Lord
will provide” – Gen. 22:14 where Abraham was stayed from offering up his
son Isaac. He offered a ram
instead. “And
Abraham called the name of the place,
The-LORD-Will-Provide; as it
is said to this day, “In the Mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”
ii.
Jehovah NIssi – “The Lord
our banner” – Exodus 17:15 says, “And
Moses built an altar and called its name, ‘The LORD-is-my-Banner.’”
iii.
Jehovah Shalom – “The Lord
our peace” – Judges 6:24, “So Gideon built an altar there to the LORD,
and called it The-LORD-Is-Peace.”
iv.
Jehovah Tsidkenu – “The
Lord our righteousness” – Jeremiah 23:5, 6, “Behold
the days are coming, says the LORD, ‘That I will raise to David a Branch
of Righteousness…In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell
safely; Now this is His name by which He will be called:
The-LORD-Our-Righteousness.”
Also Jeremiah 33:16
v.
Jehovah Sabaoth - “The
Lord of hosts” – Isaiah 1:24, “Therefore
the Lord says, “The-LORD-of-Hosts,
the Mighty ONE of Israel, ‘Ah, I will rid Myself of My adversaries, and
take vengeance of My enemies.”
Psalm 46:7, 11, “the-LORD-of-Hosts
is with us”
Isaiah 47:4 says, “As for our
Redeemer, the-LORD-of-Hosts
is His name, The Holy One of Israel.”
NOTE: See also Romans 9:29 which quotes Isaiah 1:9 saying.
It is within a text where Paul notes that God has not totally
rejected the Jews. There was
a remnant that can still be saved.
He quotes saying, “And as
Isaiah said before: ‘Unless the
LORD of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom,
and we would have become like Gomorrah.”
Jas. 5:4 speaks of the oppression
of the wealthy. James notes,
“the cries of the reapers have
reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.”
a.
Usually
translated Lord in scripture. It is a word that means master or Lord and
is used some 400 times in the Old Testament. It was a common word in
Hebrew and is used in the Bible both secularly (cf. Gen. 24:9 – master;
Gen. 18:12, 1 Peter 3:6 – Sarah called Abraham ‘Lord’) and in reference
to God (context determines – NOTE: When referring to God, English Bible
usually use the Upper case L only).
It is a word in the Hebrew language that addressed authority rather than
ownership. So it is NOT
speaking of a slave owner, but a ruler (The Complete Word Study
Dictionary of the O.T. AMG Publishers, © 2003).
Certainly, God is our ruler
b.
Gen. 15:2,
we read, “Lord GOD, what will You
give me, seeing I go childless…”
c.
Psalm
38:15, “For in You, O Lord (YHWH -
TT), I hope; You will hear, O
Lord my God.”
a.
Like the
Old Testament there are several different names attributed to God.
b.
Kurios – translated Lord
–means, “having power or authority.
Translated Lord, master, owner, sir, etc.”
(Vine’s Expository Dictionary of NT Words)
The word is found more than 700 times in the New Testament.
It is used in both a secular sense (Matt. 10:24-25) and in
reference to God (both the Father – Luke 1:68, 1 Peter 3:15, Rev. 4:8
AND of Jesus – Matt.7:21, Mark 5:19).
It is used at times in place of the Hebrew words YHWH (occasionally –
cf. Matthew 4:7, cf. Deut 6:16) and at other times in place of Adonai
(Matthew 22:44, cf. Psalm 110:1, “The
Lord said to my
Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool”
– both YHWH [1st] and Adonai [2nd] used; Matthew
1:22, cf. Isaiah 7:14 which speaks of the virgin conceiving - ) and
occasionally in place of Elohim (1 Peter 1:25, cf. Isaiah 40:6-8, “But
the word of the Lord endures forever”).
NOTE: Vine’s also records this interesting thought. When the disciples
of Jesus finally realized who Jesus was after His resurrection, they
ascribed the term “Lord” (Kurios) almost exclusively to God and Jesus.
In fact, recall that Thomas in John 20 refused to believe that
Jesus had arose until he saw the physical evidence of the wounds from
His crucifixion. John 20:28
records his response when he finally saw Jesus that next Sunday.
He said, “My Lord and My God.”
After that, with VERY FEW exceptions (less than a dozen times),
the word was used secularly by Christians (Acts 10:4 & Rev. 7:14 are
translated “lord” in English Bibles, but a few other passages such as,
Ephesians 6:5 & 9, Col. 3:22, 4:1 where the word is used both secularly
and referencing God, “Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that you
also have a Master in heaven.”
c.
Theos – used more than
1300 times in the New Testament, it is they typical word for God (a
deity), whether our God or other gods.
Obviously, the majority of the time it has reference to God or
Christ.
It is primarily the equivalent of the Hebrew Elohim, but in the
Septuagint (the Old Testament translated into Greek) it is found for
both Elohim and YHWH.
Found in passages like John 1:1, “In
the beginning was the word, and the word was with
God and the word was God.“
Mark 12:29-30, “Jesus answered
him, ‘The first of all commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God, the Lord is one.
And you shall love the Lord Your
God with all your hearts,
with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’”
d.
Father – one of the many
descriptions of Jehovah God in scripture.
It points out His authority and love for us, as He is the head of
our spiritual family. Found
in passages like John 1:18, “No
one has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the
Father, He has declared Him.”
Matthew 6:9 where Jesus begins the model prayer, “Our Father in heaven…”
Galatians 1:3, “Grace to you and
peace from God the Father and
our Lord Jesus Christ.”
And Hebrews 12:9 speaks of God as our Father and compares it to the
correction of earthly fathers.
We will discuss this more in another lesson addressing the Godhead
(Jesus and the Holy Spirit as God).
e.
Almighty – only used 9
times in the New Testament, 8 of them in the book of revelation. It is a
word that describes God as being ALL powerful
Revelation 4:8 says, “The
four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around
and within. And they do not
rest day or night, saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God
Almighty, Who was and is and
is to come!”
V.
Lessons From the Names of God:
a.
As we
consider the descriptions of God found in His names, may we be humbled
as we seek to serve Him.
Truly, He is all powerful and our creator.
b.
Do we show
God the reverence He deserves, both in our worship and in our lives?
c.
Considering the descriptions given, do we trust Him?