What's in a Name..?

The startling revelation of the article ‘Yahweh God’, has led, for me, to no end of additional revelations from the holy spirit. ALL of them concern the fact that God has a NAME.. The use of ‘names in Scripture’ speaks powerful truths that cannot be ignored or overlooked.

Let’s observe the short list..

EVERYONE IS NAMED:

All men and women of any significance in Scripture are named.. Beginning with ADAM, then Eve, then their children, their grand children, their great grandchildren..; Noah, and his sons. Noah’s wife - interestingly - remains unnamed. In Christ’s geneology, Bathsheba is merely called ‘The wife of Uriah’. (Matthew 1:6) Is this a visible slight on the 2 of them for bad behavior?

Then we get to the renaming of people for GOOD behavior..

GOD CHANGES NAMES

God changed Abram’s name to Abraham;

Sarai to Sarah;

and Jacob to Israel.

Why? What’s in a name? Each new name carried a new meaning, but the greater truth to be observed, is that names matter.

Even PLACES have names -

‘And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not?’

Exodus 17:7

THE ANGEL TOLD ZECHARIAS WHAT TO NAME HIS SON.

’The angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard;

and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son,

and thou shalt call his name JOHN.’

Luke 1:13

THE ANGEL TOLD JOSEPH WHAT TO NAME HIS SON

Then in Matthew 1:21, when the birth of Jesus was on the wise.. the angel appeared to Joseph and told him what to NAME the son of God..

‘And she shall bring forth a son,

and thou shalt call his name JESUS:

for he shall save his people from their sins.’

WOULD GOD BE THE ONLY ONE IN THE BIBLE THAT DOESN’T HAVE A NAME?

IN FACT, GOD’S NAME APPEARS IN SCRIPTURE OVER 6,000 TIMES. That’s not an error in translation either..

MOSES

Reading the article the other day, ‘Yahweh God’, I learned that the name ‘Yahweh’ for God, appears over 6,000 times in the Old Testament. But it was first spoken by God - as He was introducing Himself with His name to Moses in Exodus 3 - where He says -

God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel:

Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—

the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.

This is my eternal name,

my name to remember for all generations.’

Shall we not take His word for it?

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God actually tells Moses later, that He never told Abraham, Isaac and Jacob His name!

God spoke further to Moses and said to him,

“I am Yahweh;

‘I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as E-l Shad-dai,

but I did not make Myself known to them by My name YHWH.’

Exodus 6:2,3

Could it be, because Moses was the only one to actually ASK GOD what His name was?

‘And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me,

What is his name?

what shall I say unto them?’

This is a question worth investigating.. Why did Yahweh first tell MOSES His name?

There are commentaries that suggest God has many names. But that’s not true. God has only ever introduced himself with ONE NAME - YAHWEH.

But what about El Shaddai..? Elohim..? El..?, Adonai..? and the 10 descriptive names of God like El Roi, “God who sees”- and - Jehovah Rapha “God who heals” -

Doesn’t God have MANY names?

No. He Himself said, remember -

The words Elohim, El Shaddai, and so on, are TITLES. Not names.. titles..

Lord is a title..

GOD is a title - Like ‘king’, or ‘Pharaoh’, or ‘Tsar’, or ‘Ceasar’.. or ‘pope’.

God is not a name: satan is called the ‘god of this world’.

Lord is not a name. Sarah called Abraham ‘lord’.

They are different titles alluding to attributes of Yahweh.

• Elohim is - God who creates

• El Shaddai is - God ALMIGHTY

• El - God

• Adonai - Lord

These are many titles for YAHWEH. But His name is YAHWEH.

This gets to be uniquely significant when you realize that God never calls Himself ‘Jesus’.. And JESUS is NEVER called ‘YAHWEH’.

Though Isaiah referred to him prophetically as ‘Emmanuel’ meaning ‘God with us’ - Jesus was named ‘Jesus’.

The 2 DIFFERENT names of the LORD - Jesus - and the LORD God - Yahweh - teach us distinctly that they are not ‘one and the same’, as so much of Christian tradition teaches.

I will leave you with one more interesting point. In 2017, Jesus signed my phone..

IN September of 2017, I went into a Cricket phone store in Syracuse NY and bought a new phone with their service. A few days later some words appeared on the home screen. I did not put them there. I would not know HOW to put them there.

I returned to the store and asked them how the words could have appeared.. The sales people and techs had NO IDEA.

The words that appeared were Jesus’ name - ‘JESUS the CHRIST.’

As long as I had that phone in use (It’s no longer working but I still have it) Jesus’ name remained on the Home Screen. If I turn the phone on now, the name is still there.

No matter if I changed the home screen background photo - the words JESUS the CHRIST were always there from the day they first appeared. He signed my phone! That’s a photo I took of my son Nikolai that I’d put on my home screen. I had other photos on my home screen - but like I said Jesus’ name remained all the years I used the phone.

Jesus has a name - ‘Thou shalt name him JESUS’.

GOD has a name - ‘Yahweh’ ‘This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations.’

Their names are NEVER swapped out, or used by the other. This is uniquely significant.

How did I miss this for so many years?

This past week, for the first time in my Christian life, I used the name YAHWEH when I prayed. I said - “God - Yahweh, if this is your name, please answer this prayer soon”.

The very next day I got an answer I’ve been waiting YEARS for..

More on this to come..

Godspeed,

VJCB

No matter whether I am writing, or editing a post, if I look at the time when I finish, 9 times out of 10, it's a countdown clock number.. 07, 17, 27, 37, etc..