Exodus 20:7
You can print out the pdf file here
What’s in a name?
Imagine that you are chair of a committee organising a village fete in Steeple Bumstead on the Marsh, and you are hoping to pull in a huge crowd to raise money to repair the church steeple. But there are lots of other things happening in the village that weekend and you begin to feel that you may get a very disappointing attendance. So you and your committee of helpers decide to put the word out that one of you is related to Dawn French and that she has agreed to open the fete and give out the prizes. The Vicar of Dibley in Steeple-Bumstead! People are very excited, and hundreds of them turn out.
That is the power of a name!
Sadly, you cannot give them the Vicar of Dibley, on the day you get a couple of thousand people turning up but they only get the Vicar of Steeple-Bumstead.
That is using Dawn French’s name in vain!
God’s names are powerful too, because they tell us about him. The more you understand God’s names the more you can enjoy the God who has chosen to reveal them to us and the better placed you are to live for him.
Let’s think more carefully about three of God’s names.
Exodus 3:13-15 – This is the name that Moses says we should not use in vain. Moses met with God for the first time on Mt Horeb in the Sinai desert. In the conversation that followed God told Moses his name. In Hebrew it looks like this, YHWH, you pronounce it Yahweh by adding the vowels yourself! Your Bible translates this word as ‘I AM’ but you could equally well translate it, ‘I ALWAYS WAS’ or ‘I ALWAYS WILL BE’. Here’s what it means:
He exists, he always has done and always will do, he is eternal and time has no effect upon him – he has never been younger and will never be older, nothing we do and nothing we say can ever change the fact that he is – he just is. He does not depend on us, but we depend on him.
Let’s honour this name. The name God revealed to us through Moses tells us so much about God – and it energises our worship and praise. So it is with other names that God has revealed over time.
There are dozens of names for God scattered throughout the Old Testament – here are a few examples:
- Elohim – the multi-personal creator God
- El elyon – the most high God above all Gods
- YHWH jireh – the God who will provide all your needs
Now, all these names have potent meanings but, frankly, they are not so much names as formal royal titles. If you ever meet the queen it is likely to be at one of her formal events – like a garden party at Buckingham Palace. She will be introduced to you by one of her equerries; this is how the introduction might go:
“May I introduce Her Majesty, Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.” We feel that we know her, and respect her, but it’s hard to feel intimate with someone who goes by that name, isn’t it?
Imagine arriving in heaven and looking for God, sure enough he is there but you don’t see much of him… after all he is the Creator, most high God above all Gods: he will provide your needs but if you really want to see him you had better wait for a formal invitation to the garden party
Now, let’s open the New Testament…
Matthew 6:7-15 – It is so easy to miss a small detail in the course of Jesus’ introduction to prayer – within six chapters of the start of the New Testament we have a new name for God, Father.
Now remember that God is all of those things – those royal titles are his titles – but he is also your Father. When you arrive in heaven you will not have to look for him, you won’t be able to avoid him, because he is already homing in on you! As those gates swing open his face will be the first face you see and his arms will be the first to embrace you.
When Jesus taught us to understand that God is our Father, this is what he meant:
You have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.
Romans 8:15-17
This means that God does not want our awed admiration, however good that may be, he wants our heartfelt love and intimacy. Whoever you are and whatever you have done he wants you to know him as your Father.
There was a man who had two sons [1] , and one day the youngest son went up to his dad and said, “Dad, I wish you were dead!” He wanted his share of the old man’s estate now, whole he was still young and could enjoy it. Incredibly, the father gave half his estate to the son and the young man left home and blew the lot. Then there was a recession and his erstwhile friends left the youngest son begging for a living – eventually he ended up half-starved and working in a piggery.
Then the young guy had a moment of clarity – he saw that he had no option but to return home and apologise to his father. He decided to throw himself on the old man’s mercy. As he walked home he rehearsed the speech he would make on his arrival, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son, treat me as one of your hired servants.”
It was a speech he never got to make. The boy’s father saw him coming, ran to meet him and immediately re-instated him – he threw a party to celebrate the fact that his son had returned: he felt as though a dead child had come back to life!
In the whole of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, there is only one picture of God running – this one! This picture of the father running to be reunited with his lost son. When Jesus told us that God’s name is Father, this is what he meant.
But the most revealing character in the drama only comes on stage at the very end. There was an older son, who had not left home, and who had always been faithful to his dad and had worked hard to provide for the family. When the older brother got home that night and heard the dance-music he was outraged when he found out what had happened. Now he did get to make his speech; “I have served you faithfully all my life, I have never disobeyed you, yet you never once gave me so much as a goat to celebrate with my friends”, he said, “But this son of yours, who has wasted your fortune on prostitutes, comes home and you throw a party!”
Do you know what? The older brother was right – his dad was off his rocker, his behaviour was outrageous, he was being way too generous with his younger son.
And that is the point of the story – when Jesus told us to understand that God’s name is Father he wanted us to see that Father’s outrageous kindness and generosity to those who deserve to be thrown out on their ear. This is what it means to know that God is your Father:
Nothing you can do can make his love you more, and nothing that you have done can make him close the door, because of his great love he gave to us his Son, everything was done so you could come. Come to the Father, though your gifts be small, broken hearts, broken lives, he can take them all. The power of the word, the power of his blood,
We call this grace and this is what it means to dare to call God Father!
Matthew 28:19-20 – Jesus commanded his apprentices to teach the gospel to others and make new apprentices of them. These new followers were to show that they meant business by being baptised in the name of God. But look at the name (singular) Jesus taught them to use, “… in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”: one name – three persons. Here is a new name for God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Bible tells us that there is only one God:
The Lord our God is one Lord; or The Lord our God, the Lord is one
Deuteronomy 6:4
This is non-negotiable; God is One. Yet that word one is interesting – look at how the same Hebrew word is used here:
This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.
Genesis 2:24
In the Old Testament it is possible for two to be spoken of as one because of the special relationship they have with one another. Two people become one as they embark on a love relationship.
God is Father, God is Son and God is Holy Spirit: they are three, and they are one because their undying, eternal, perfect love for one-another that unites them perfectly. God is three and God is one: both at the same time!
Imagine you arrive in heaven only to discover that there has been some terrible mistake: it is the Muslim heaven, this is where Allah lives! Allah is one, and he will not tolerate any nonsense about the Trinity – you wonder where Allah is and ask around for him only to be told that he is not very interested in seeing you. He is one, self-sufficient and self-contained, he needs no-one: he is a rock, he is an island. Now and then you do see Allah, he spends most of his time in his office working, but occasionally comes out to make a cup of coffee. He never starts a conversation or makes eye contact, and when he is done he goes quickly back into his office and closes the door. He doesn’t need you – he is self-sufficient – you are not his friend, he is not your father, you are his subject.
Allah is not the same being as Yahweh – never let anyone persuade you that these two are the same because they are not!
When you arrive in heaven you will enter the home of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit who have lived in perfect unity and love for eternity and who thrive on the love that flows between them. You are there because the Trinity want to include you in the happiness and security of their love. When you reach the Christian heaven (there is not another one, by the way) you will arrive in a place that is buzzing with the joy of people appreciating the wonder of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. A place that is alive with God’s appreciation of the love of his people – it is why the world was made. This is why everything exists!
We only know this because of the names that God has revealed to us. How can you misuse his precious names?
How might we ruin the name of God?
People who are not Christians often use his name as an expletive.
Governments, when it suits them, use God’s name to give weight to their decisions.
Christians misuse God’s name all the time: For example, when we say that “God told me…” or “God said this…” referring to our private sense of being led by him we are actually putting words into God’s mouth – this is serious, we are using his name inappropriately. This is now a common expression in and around our churches and it is using the Lord’s name in vain, ruining his reputation.
We honour his mane when we combine a little honesty with our faith and a little humility when we speak about our private experience of guidance. The only way you can ever be really sure that God has said something is if you can find it in the Bible – everything else needs careful discernment by wise people. Do you think, perhaps, that God may be saying this to you?
The name of God is very precious, we should treasure it and not throw it around like confetti, let’s find out why.
[1] You will find this story in Luke 15