The Names of God

Many people up here. It's interesting, the greetings we make in a different setting. I might have referred to them as Orville and Leo, but of course in a formal setting we like to use our formal titles.

If we went back maybe not all that many years, a few decades or a hundred years or so, I might have been saying Brother Bumgardner or Brother Sancho. And I say that just to make the point that what we call a person depends much on the setting and our relationship to the person.

When I speak to teens at summer camp or winter family weekend, I might say, well, I think we don't have too many people here, but we have a lot of the teens there in the Portsmouth congregation. I don't know if many of you know, well, Rick Shoemaker, you've seen up on leading songs a lot of times. Rather, if I'm talking to young people, they might not know who he is, but I say, well, Joe's dad or Leanne's dad, that would make sense to them. Oh, that's who you mean.

Now, there's a fellow, a neighbor down the street, Mr. Dexter, who's become a good friend to Connor. That's why I call him Mr. Dexter. I'm trying to teach Connor to use those misters. If I were speaking to him about any of you here, he wouldn't know who you were, so I might just refer to you as a fellow that I go to church with. And he'd say, oh, okay. I think, whereas I refer to Mr. Bumgardner by that term, kitty might have an endearing term for him, which, who knows, you know, honey, sweetie, things like that. So, what we call someone says a lot about our relationship with them and about how we know that person. So, it also follows that how we introduce ourselves to others says a lot about how we want them to know us and what we they want them to know about us and to feel about us.

And that varies in different settings. When I first began teaching at Texas A&M University, I, you know, I went into the classroom. I thought, well, what am I, how am I going to introduce myself to the students? Because I thought, I'm older than them, but not as much older as most of the whole professors. And I probably thought about it way more than I needed to. In the end, I told them, now, my name is Frank Dunkel. If you can call me Dr. Dunkel, I think at one point I told them, most of my friends call me Frank. So, if you feel friendly, you can just say Frank, which brought an interesting phenomenon. I don't know if many of you are familiar with the old TV show Cheers. There is a show, well, it's set in this bar in Boston, and there's these normal people come in, and there's a tradition. This one fella named Norm, when he would come in, everybody in the bar would go, Norm! Shout and greeting. So, after I said that to my students at A&M, there was a group of about five or six of them. When I would walk in, they would go, Frank!

Which, I'm sure some people thought, oh, I'm not sure if that's appropriate. I saw it as a sign of affection. But, as I said, when I introduced myself to the teens at summer camp, because of the formal setting, I'd tell them, my name is Mr. Dunkel. But, if I'm meeting someone just out anywhere, and I'm not sure the setting, then I usually don't use the title at all. I might say, you know, I'm Frank Dunkel. Other settings, in a friendly basis, I say, hi, I'm Frank. And I've had numerous occasions when I would visit, especially when not long after Sue and I were married, I met members of her family that I hadn't met before. And, rather than with names, it's just, I'm Sue's husband. You know, that's how they were going to remember me anyway.

I'm spending a lot of time on this, but interesting. I wanted to show that, as a teenager, I could not wait to finally outgrow the name of Tina's little brother. And my older sister, by two years, is named Tina. And it seemed like when I was 13 and 14 years old, that could have been my name, Tina's little brother.

Worth considering also, sometimes the way we want to be known by people doesn't necessarily match with their comfort level. Going back to the summer camp, of course, it was easy for the campers, you know, they were used to calling someone like me Mr. Dunkel. But when I first started at Camp Heritage, I was a college student, albeit a graduate student. Many of the staff were also college students, but were about 10 or 12 years younger than me. So we were on the same plane at camp, but there was this discomfort. I was fine with them calling me Frank, but many of them felt like they had to call me Mr. Dunkel, because I was so old. I think at that time I was 30-something. That's ancient, according to some people. But as we got on a friendly basis, it's funny, eventually the mister got dropped. Many of them just started calling me Dunkel. And then eventually, several of them Frank. There was one, it is according to me, several of you were at Jekyll Island for the feast. You might have come across a Wilson family there, Ted and Beth, and they got several little kids running around, and Ted's sister, Risa. The reason I mentioned they were on staff for a long time, and Risa and I got to be good friends, but she could never call me Frank. She just, it wasn't right. And then we got to be too close for her to call me Mr. Dunkel. So she ended up just calling me Dunk. And she's the only person I know, that's the one thing she'll always call me. I'm Dunk. I didn't have a problem with that, though, because I remember back when I was a student at Big Sandy, I worked at the water plant.

And my boss was a fella in his 30s, I think, and he was the head of the water plant, real friendly fella named Wayne Weeks. And after I'd been there a while, there were only two employees and him, so we were all on good terms. I had felt like I knew him and was too comfortable to keep calling him Mr. Weeks, but I just couldn't cross that threshold to call him Wayne. So eventually, I settled on just calling him Chief. And I'm not sure if he ever wondered why I did that. And I was like, hey, Chief, how's it going? Now, I've spent a fair bit of time talking about this subject to emphasize my point that many people, people here and now, go by many different names or titles for various reasons. We tell people a name or a title that we go by to describe ourselves to others, to reveal things about our relationship and our knowledge of each other. As I said, whether I tell people on Mr. Dunkel or Dr. Dunkel depends on the setting and what I want them to know about me. So it shouldn't be surprising to consider that God, the creator and ruler of the universe, also goes by a variety of names and titles. The Bible uses many different words to describe him and different ones at different times and settings.

God has taken on new titles or names also according to different circumstances. So because names and titles reveal different things, and because it's important for us to build our relationship with the one we call God, it's certainly, I think, worthwhile to spend some time looking at and considering the different words, names, titles that are used in the Bible to describe him.

Now, I'll say this, we don't have time to consider them all. And there are several that I thought of when I went into this. I had a long list. I thought, well, you know, as I started explaining, I thought for the detail on the ones that I wanted to discuss, I couldn't address all of them. And I will mention one of the reasons I wanted to address this is because perennially in the Church of God, every so many years, it seems there's a wave of people focusing and learning about the issue of whether you have to use certain Hebrew words to talk about God or not. And there are a whole different Church... Let me slow down a little. There are entire Church organizations who exist as separate groups only because of their insistence on using certain words, usually the Hebrew, and they say, if you're not using those, then you're wrong. And we've had many times over the years people leave the Church of God...

Church of God organizations to go join those groups. And I don't want to say I'm overly critical of those. I believe most of those people are well-meaning and they're obeying what they see in the Bible, but I think they have a misunderstanding of what God's names tell us.

So in our English Bible we find two main words that are used to describe God.

Obviously the first one is God, the word G-O-D in English. The other is Lord, L-O-R-D.

But I should qualify that and make the point that what we see in English as one word is really two different words. And we can see the rendering, at least in the King James or New King James, by whether it's spelled with a capital L, lowercase O-R-D, or all four letters in uppercase, capital L-O-R-D. But we can also see other words occasionally and words in combination.

So let's consider some of the English words that are used in our Bible to talk about our God.

You don't have to go very far in the English Bible. Actually, if you turn to Genesis 1 verse 1, it's the fourth word you come across. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now, those of you who have been in the church for a long time are very familiar with this word. It's translated into English from the Hebrew, Eloim. E-E-E-L-O-H-I-M.

Eloim is a plural word, and the literal of the Hebrew means mighty ones.

Mighty ones. It almost always refers to God when it's in the Bible. There are some places, and I didn't make note of the specific scriptures, but there are a small number of places where the word Eloim is used to refer to human beings and certain positions of power. It's always obvious from the context, which it means. I should point out, since Eloim is a plural word, Eloah, E-L-O-A-H, is the singular, which means, literally translated, mighty ones.

Now, Eloim is the way it almost always appears, because, as Mr. Armstrong explained many times, it's a plural word that has developed a singular usage. Meaning, it's like an English word that ends in S, but you treat it as though it doesn't. It's plural, but you treat it as though it's singular. The best counterpart I can think of is the United States of America. That's a plural word, states, but we use it singular. We say the United States is such and such a country, not the United States are such and such countries. That's actually something, as an American historian, I like to point out that that type of usage for the United States changed after the Civil War. Before the Civil War happened, usually the United States was treated in the plural. After the Civil War, when it was determined that it was one country, whether all the states liked it or not, the actual English grammar changed. Well, we understand the Eloim being plural in an actual definition, but singular in usage, as perfectly describing the family of God. That the family of God can consist of a number of members. By our understanding, right now, it consists of God the Father and the Son, the One who was the Word, became Jesus Christ, and now is born as at the Father's right hand, and then also potentially of many more children yet to be born.

Now, we'll come back to that idea a little bit later.

I want to mention also that both Eloam and Eloim are based on the root word, just simply L, E-L.

That word can be translated as an inseparable word on its own that means strength or might. I didn't mean this to be a grammar lesson, but as I said, we want to get into some of these details to see why they matter to some people. It can also be translated as the nourisher or the One who gives strength, and in that way, L, it doesn't imply a mother, but it implies someone who gives life, that is life-sustaining when it applies to an individual. And many of us are familiar with that term from the song El Shaddai. I know in Gatlinburg, a young lady sang that for special music. It was popular even on the radio a few years back. El Shaddai meaning Almighty God.

Now, the word Lord is used for God in the Bible many times, but as I said, there's actually two different words we can come across here. Let's go to Genesis 15.

Because, of course, the word in English, and some of those who are involved in what we commonly call sacred names groups. I'm not sure if people in those churches take offense at that. I don't mean it as an offense, but many of them find object to using the term Lord in English because they just say it doesn't connote the real meaning of God.

It means someone who's a boss. And I've heard people say it comes from the Old English that meant the one who keeps the loaf of bread. And I thought, our God is greater than a loaf keeper. And I said, well, of course he is. And we're looking at the meaning of the word more than where it came from. But Genesis 15 too, but Abram said, Lord God. Notice the two words there together. And he goes on to ask, you know, he's talking to God about having a child. But that word for Lord, notice it's capital L, then small o-r-d. That's the word adenai in Hebrew. Adenai seems really to be a title more than a proper name.

And it means literally Lord. It could be, and many of the places could be translated from the Hebrew into a title like boss or even mister or serve. So that's the connotation behind adenai. It's boss or top guy. I mean, if we, you can use slang if you, well, we usually don't because we're talking about God, but we do that with people. As I said, when my former boss, when I worked at the water plant, I called him chief. That could be an interpretation from adenai in certain settings. But when adenai is often combined with the next word that we'll discuss, and that's the capital LORD.

And I want to go to Exodus chapter 3. And while you're turning there, I want to give some background and remind you of this. I think many of us know, but when we're talking about Hebrew or Greek words, I often give a spelling into English, but it's a transliteration. Both the Hebrew and Greek languages use an entirely different alphabet. So they don't have the A, B, C, Ds that I'm trying to teach Connor right now. They have different letters that have different sounds. They can correspond to some degree, but they're different.

So translating them into English presents certain difficulties. And part of the reason it's especially difficult with Hebrew is it's a very ancient language. And when it's written even properly today, it reads from left to right instead of right to left as we're used to. So it seems backwards. And in the ancient times of the Bible, it was written without vowels and also without breaks between the words or sentences. So it was just a line of letter upon letter upon letter with none of them being vowels.

And I'm amazed that the translators were able to get anything out of it. I think they have extreme training and they learn what these letters mean. And of course, there's a lot of tradition following it. But that's important because the vowels with or I said without vowels. So it was all consonants without vowels, and they relied on oral tradition to say how those would be pronounced, what vowels should be inserted.

That's going to be important. Now let's go to Exodus chapter 3. And we'll start in verse 13. Here God is called Moses. And of course, God appears in the burning bush. Moses says, I wonder what's going on here. I've got to check this out. He's told to take off your shoes. You're standing on holy ground. And they go on to have this discussion.

And it turns out God wants Moses to go back to Egypt and take on this huge job of leading the children of Israel out of slavery and into freedom and into the Promised Land. And Moses has some interesting questions. And he gets down to the brass tacks, you could say. And if we're talking about the names of God, Moses asks.

He says, Moses said to God, by the way, that's said to Elohim, indeed when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you. And they say, well, what's His name? Well, what do I say to them? So they're going to ask me, what's this guy's name or this God's name? So what am I going to tell them? Moses is asking, what's your name? And then, but God doesn't just give a straight answer. He doesn't say, you know, one word, that's my name. And there's some discussion as to what He does give him.

Some people say He gave him three names here. Others say He gave him a description and two different names. Or I've heard some scholars say He gave him an explanation, a name, and a title. Or perhaps some other combination of all those. And you might be thinking, well, all those seem awful a lot alike.

Is a name different than a title? And is a description different than a name if it means the same thing as your name? And I'm going to leave those questions hanging because I don't have an absolute answer, but they're worth considering when you're translating from one language to another. So let's go on and read. God said to Moses, I am who I am. That's the new King James. I like the old King James that I am that I am.

Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. And this is from the Hebrew word that usually it's interpreted as Hayah. Not like that always makes me think of karate, someone breaking a board would say Hayah. But it's H-A-Y. This is why I brought my glasses up here. I ended up writing this too small. H-A-Y-H-A. Hayah. H-A-Y-H-A. And that's again, remember, translating from Hebrew letters.

But it's basically the Hebrew verb to be. Our English word member, to be, we don't say be very often. It translates to I am, you are, he is. It's the verb that means to exist. And that's the way it can be translated. You know, you might say, did God tell him his name?

Or he could be saying, Moses said, what's your name? What do you mean, what's my name? I'm the one who exists. And that way it could just be a description. But since God names things what they are, it could also be, my name is, I'm the one who is. Always has been, always will be. That's obviously a very good description of God, and he spells it out in those ways in other places. Matter of fact, this fits very well. I want to look at the book of John. We're going to come back here if you want to put your finger in Exodus. John chapter 8. John chapter 8 will begin in verse 53.

Here's the case. Of course, we're looking to the life of Jesus Christ who, I don't think I'm skipping ahead or giving much away to say that we believe he was God in the flesh. I'm going to discuss that more literally later. But there's a case where he's having a confrontation with the Pharisees, the rulers of the country. Here in John chapter 8. 53, they're asking, they say, are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead and the prophets who are dead? Who do you make yourself out to be? I think, who are you? Similar question to what Moses asked God at the burning bush. Now, Jesus gives a partly an answer, but I want to move ahead to verse 58.

Because there's discussion back and forth again, and the Jews say to him in 57, you're not even 50 years old. Have you seen Abraham? And Jesus said to them, most assuredly I say to you before Abraham was, I am. Got down to that same answer that we believe the very same being gave to Moses back there at the burning bush. This is the Greek word for to be. I believe it would be spelled ina or I am EE. And it means I exist. And of course, it's interesting after he says that, that they took up stones to stone him. There's another case where later when the soldiers come to capture him, does a similar thing. He says, you know, we're looking for Jesus. He says, I am he or I am, and they fall down. They fall down because some people say the power of his name proclaiming himself who he is. But I think it's not a coincidence that Jesus made this claim, equating that he was the same one who told Moses. You know, when Moses asked him his name, he said, I am. I exist. Now, let's move back here to Exodus chapter 3, and we'll move on to verse 15.

Because he's not done yet. As I said, if he just stopped there, he would have said, well, that must be his name. But he says, Moreover, God says to Moses, thus you shall say to the children of Israel. And he says, here's the first time we see that all capital L-O-R-D. We would pronounce it the Lord God of your fathers. This L-O-R-D is translated from what we commonly call the tetragrammaton. Most of you are probably familiar with that term. Spelled in Hebrew is Y-H-W-H. And I say that because, remember, they spelled it without vowels. So those are the consonants. Now, which consonants we should include has been up to debate. Most scholars agree that it was probably meant to be pronounced Yahweh.

But there are some dispute, and some say we don't know that for certain. It could be that it was Yahu or Yahuwah, or there's various other ones that don't come out the same. Most people assume Yahweh is about right. But Yahweh, Eloam, is put there together. There's a lot of discussion about the Y-H-W-H, the Yahweh. It's based on the earlier word we talked about, the taiyah.

That's the base word of Yahweh. So the to be is what he said earlier, and then the Yahweh, or the tetragrammaton, many take this to be a personal name. But the best definition of it is the self-existent one, or the one who is. And that's why many ministers in the church for years have had to have it where they see that, because they know Lord is not necessarily the best translation. We often got in the habit of saying the eternal. I like to say that because it proclaims more of what this means than just saying Lord. I think it's a better translation, but still, perhaps, imperfect. And I'll have to confess, sometimes I say Lord when I'm reading from the Old Testament, because if the eternal has so many more syllables, it can be hard to get out when he says it over and over again. But this begs the question, why not just say Lord, then? Why do we want to say something different? And the reason for that, and we might say why didn't they translate it into Yahweh or whatever they thought was the best translation. And the reason for that is, as I said, scholars aren't certain that that's how to pronounce it. And there's also a debate over whether we should pronounce it. And if we have the right translation, the Hebrews in Jesus' time and before thought that the name was too holy and sacred to pronounce, that they shouldn't say it because it was the name of God and it was holy, so you don't say that. There's also the counter to that. Some say, well, it's not necessarily that it's too holy to say it, but if you say it and it means I am the eternal, as you pronounce that, you're committing blasphemy because it would be me saying, I am the eternal and obviously I'm not. Do you see what I'm getting at there? So they were saying, if you're saying his name, you're claiming to be that one and so you shouldn't say it. So over the years, even before the time of Christ, the Jews got in the habit of saying the word Lord or Adonai. They didn't say English Lord. They said Adonai where the YHWH was in Scripture. So they would see that word that would be pronounced something else, but instead of that, they would say Adonai. The same way many times if I'm reading the Old Testament, when I see the capital LORD, I often say eternal. Now, and that leads to some of the things that came up translating into English. Later on, scholars, when they were translated, started putting in what they call vowel indicators or vowel points to give an idea of what vowel should have been there if they'd been written down. So they had the consonants. When they came to the YHWH, they didn't want to put in the actual consonants because they said you're not supposed to say that. You're supposed to say Adonai. So they put in the vowels for Adonai with the consonants for Yahweh.

Some translators, when they went to English, put those together and came up with the word Jehovah.

And so it's a hybrid word that we don't think was ever intended.

And that does show up in the Bible. As a matter of fact, I'm looking in Exodus 6, verse 3.

This is the first place. Now, I'm going to read this. Any of you have the original King James version in front of you? Because if you do, you'll see that where it says, I appeared to Abraham to Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty, as Aloeim, but by my name, and the old King James, it says, Jehovah. I was not known. That's why they're saying, by my name, Jehovah. But what was written there was the YHWH. And in the New King James translation, it has the capital L-O-R-D. I'm correct. Does anybody have a translation that has something different there than either of those two? Because it surprised me, I'd written all this. I prepared the notes looking at my old King James, and then I got my new King James, and said, well, it doesn't say Jehovah here. Well, that's because they realized that that was a mistranslation, and they wanted to have it accurate, or render it accurately. Jehovah appears a couple of other places, including Psalms 8 and verse 18. And I'm not going to turn there, but give you that reference. In the Old King James, it appears. But the New King James, it's the capital L-O-R-D, because it's translated from the Hebrew, the YHWH. As I said, most scholars agree, YHWH is the way to do that. And there are people practicing Christians who believe that they have to say that word that way, or else they're in big trouble. But there's still some doubt as to whether it's correct. My thought, and the general acceptance of most in Christianity, is that we can leave behind the debate on pronunciation and spelling. Most agree that it's the meaning that matters the most. We know what that word means, even if we don't know how to pronounce it. It means the one who has always been, the one who has life inherent in himself. But there's still the question, is it a proper name, or is it a title? Is it like Mr. or Dr. or Boss? I want to go back again, once again, to Exodus 3, verses 14 and 15. And before I leave this, because if you remember going into it, I said there are possibly three different names here. And so far, I've only discussed two, and they're two different versions of the same one. The other one I want to mention, some people call a title or a description or perhaps a name. That is, in verse 15, God said to Moses, you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord God, or the Yahweh, Elohim of your fathers, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

That's Elohim of Abraham, Elohim of Isaac, and Elohim of Jacob. You can make a good case that this is His name, because immediately after He says this, it says, this is my name forever. This is my memorial to all generations. And many scholars have looked and said, well, which is His name and His memorial? Which of the things that He just said? Because He started off saying, I am that I am. And He said, the Lord God. And then He said, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And I actually did a little checking, because I thought, well, He said, this is my name, this is my memorial. The Hebrew for name, shalom, means this is my position, my appointment, my individual memorial. Which, translating that into name, is a good way to translate it. This is the way I'm remembered as an individual, or this is my memorial.

When He says, this is my memorial, in the next sentence, that's the word zaikr, it means recollection or remembrance. So, this is the way I'm remembered. Or you could say, what I'm known by. Either of those could be translated as name, or translated as, this is the way people know me. I don't think it's a stretch to consider that one of God's names, though, that it is an actual name that to say, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That that became His name. Because, as we saw in Exodus 6, 4, look there again, I don't think I read actually that far. We talked about, we read in 6, 3, where He said, I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, as Elohim, but by my name, Yahweh, or YHWH, I wasn't known to them. I have also established my covenant with them. God established a covenant with those three men. And I think it's significant that He became known as the God of those three men. Let's see a progression. If you go back to Genesis, because remember when I said, what you tell people, Genesis 26, verse 24, the way you introduce yourself to people is a way of telling them what you want them to know about yourself. The way God introduces Himself to people was a way of Him telling them what He wanted them to know. We'll see that here in Genesis 26, verse 24. Here it says, and by the way, I'll point out, here it says the eternal, the capital L-O-R-D. This was put in by translators later, because we know later there in Genesis, He said, I wasn't known by this name. So we assume that Moses put it in later to show that this was Him. But He says, He appeared to Him that is to Isaac in the same night and said, I'm the God of your father Abraham. So God appeared to Isaac and said, I'm the God of Abraham. That's how He introduced Himself. He didn't say, I am that I am, or I'm the eternal one. He said, hi, good to meet you. I'm the God of your father Abraham.

He's not yet called the God of Isaac, though, but He would enter a covenant with Isaac later. And if we go ahead a couple chapters, Genesis 28 and verse 13, you see, behold, again, the eternal stood above it. And this is where Jacob puts his head on a stone for a pillow. And he has this dream and he sees this ladder or staircase and angels going up and down. And he says, the eternal stood above it and said, and God introduces Himself to Jacob and says, I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. So now God is added to His title or name, the name of Isaac. Before He said, I'm the God of Abraham. Now He introduces Himself as, I'm the God of Abraham and Isaac. He'd added to His name, in a sense. And then, of course, we already read in Exodus where He introduced Himself as, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now, as I said, I think it's significant that He introduces Himself in those ways because He made the case He entered a covenant with those men. And these are also three individuals to whom God gave names. And when we talk about His name, because remember, initially there was Abram. God changed Abram's name to Abraham. So God gave Abraham a new name. And you could say God took on Himself a new name. Now God of Abraham. God gave Isaac His name in the first place. He said, you're going to have a son, you're going to name him Isaac. So God gave Isaac His name. And God took upon him now the name God of Abraham and Isaac. And then God also gave Jacob a name. He gave him the new name of Israel. Remember, after they wrestled all night, He said, what's your name? My name's Jacob. I'm not going to let go of you unless you bless me. He said, you're no longer going to be Jacob. Now your name is Israel. And He took upon him the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel or Jacob. There's a little flaw in the logic there, but I think God refers to Himself as the God of Jacob to distinguish between being the God of the nation of Israel, which He also was. One of the reasons I'm pointing this out is I've heard from someone who studied into it more than I did. I'm not an expert on covenants of the ancient lands, but they said they came across one of the traditions when two parties would enter a covenant. They would often sacrifice an animal and eat the animal together, and they would take on new names, often exchanging names.

And that would be between individuals, but you could see the God, the Eternal One, made a covenant with Isaac or with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And in each case, they took on new names. The individual took on a new name, and God took on a new name.

So, as I said, or a new title. When you finish a degree, you can take on a new title, or if you pass the CPA exam, you add that to your name. So, we could debate, is it a name or is it a title? But it's one of the ways by which God is known, and He would introduce Himself. So, they'd appear and say, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If you're introducing yourself that way, that makes a good case for being a name. As we said, well, I think I mentioned this earlier, and I remember Mr. Herbert Armstrong made the case that many times God likes to name things what they actually are. When He created the first man, He named him Adam, which literally is the Hebrew word for red clay. He made Adam out of the dust of the ground. I'm going to name him Red Dirt. So, when God called Himself, I'm the self-existing one, or the Hiyah, He was calling Himself what He is. I wanted to mention that because there are several cases where God would combine the YHWH with other words that describe what He is. I'm only going to go to one example, even though there are many. Exodus 15 and verse 26. Now, this is the case where after Israelites were traveling from Egypt and before the Promised Land, when they came to a place where there was water, but the water was bitter and they couldn't drink it. So, God had Moses... Yeah, He cut down a certain tree and He threw in the water. They were made well. Then God tells Him something interesting in verse 26.

He said, if you diligently heed the voice of the Eternal your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I'll put none of the diseases on you, which I've brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Eternal who heals you. In Hebrew, He says, I am Yahweh Rapha, which means the God who heals you. But there are several places we could go to where God describes Himself. He'll say something. He'll stop and say, I am the YHWH who does this, the YHWH who gives victory. One, I believe, is Yahweh Vidkanu, which means the Eternal is my banner of victory. So, all these are different names or titles that God took on or introduced Himself by at different times to show who and what He is. And as I said, I've got a list of those that I picked up while I was in college, but I thought it's going to take too long and be too involved to go through all of those. Especially when I want to go to the New Testament and talk about names for God in Greek. And the New Testament to Greek simplifies things quite a bit for us, actually, but we find some new titles for God that are very important, and they really help us in understanding our relationship to Him. But let's start off in John 1, verse 1.

We're going to get to some others, but I think it's important for us to look here.

John 1 and verse 1, of course, the famous word, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The word for Word, which is difficult to say, is Logos. It means either Word or Spokesman. The word that's translated as God is the Greek Theos. And as I said, the two main English words that are translated in the English, or the two main English words we know of, are God and Lord. When they're translated from Greek, it's Theos. And Theos means God. And it could be translated either... Let me back up and say this more slowly. The same word was used in Greek if it meant the one true God, or if it meant any of these many pagan false gods. They were called Theos in plural if they were talking about Jupiter and Hermes and all those other gods that we know didn't really exist. The same Greek word was used for the same for the great God. And I want to point that out because it was used in writing the books of the New Testament by the apostles Paul and Peter and James and all those. They didn't hesitate to use that word. And if they did, all the manuscripts were changed and there's hundreds and thousands of them. So I want to point that out because there are some people that say, well, those... our copies are corrupted. They originally only used the proper Hebrew words and then other people copied and put in the Greek word. Well, that... if that had been done, it's almost certain there'd be some evidence. Because unlike the ancient manuscripts for Hebrew that go back thousands of years, we've got a lot of copies of the Greek that go back close to the time the originals were written. And certainly some of them would have had the Hebrew as opposed to the Greek and you'd see perhaps even changes.

Okay. I want to also go to Revelation chapter 19. As I said, Jesus... or the one we know as the Son of God was known as the Word, the Logos. We see that appear in one other place that's important. Revelation 19 and verse 13. As I said, we want to know what names is he known by.

Here we'll see it again. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood and his name is the Word... his name is called the Word of God. So this one that returns to fulfill these prophecies of Revelation is the one that John spoke of at the beginning. But that's not the only name he's known by. Of course, I think we know that. If we look even later in this chapter in verse 16, it says, "...he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords." So we've got two names already for the same individual. Also down in verse 32... now, wait a minute... hold on a minute... yeah, in verse 12, I'm sorry, up in verse 12, the same individual, "...his eyes were like a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns. He had a name that no one knew except himself." So that's something... you know, what was that name? Did he tell it later?

We don't know. That's where... if you have to use a certain name to talk about one who is God, wouldn't he let you know what that was and not cause confusion? I don't think we have to worry about that. Logos doesn't appear many other places in the Bible, but it's important in John 1 verse 1, it shows us some important things about God when it is used. For one thing, it shows us that there were two beings there, and it makes it very clear. In the beginning was the word, and he was with God, and he was God. We see, as I said, that same Greek word in the New Testament is used quite a bit, and it's much simpler than the Old Testament because we don't have this discussion of, can you pronounce it and how should it be? There's a similar situation for the Greek word that was translated as Lord. As I said, in the Hebrew, you've got, was it Adonai or was it the Y-H-W-H? The Greek word is curials. That's K-U-R-I-O-S, and it's the only Greek word that was to be translated into Lord. And significantly, no difference whether it was referring to the all capital L-O-R-D or the one with only the first word. Let's see an example in Luke chapter 20, Luke 20 in verse 42.

I specifically wanted to choose this one because here Jesus Christ Himself is quoting from the Old Testament and an Old Testament scripture where both words for Lord are used in the Old Testament. And the Old Testament, by the way, is quoting from Psalm 110 verse 1. And Psalm 110 verse 1, David writes, the eternal, the YHWH or the YHWH said to my Adonai, sit here at my right hand. But when Jesus quoted, He said, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. Now, you'll notice it's in all capitals here, and you're new, and you're either your old King James or new King James.

And the second one is not in all caps. But in the original Greek, they're both the same Greek word, curios. So He's quoting where David used two different words, but Jesus said, the curios said to my curios, sit at my right hand. Now, some say, well, the translators got it wrong, and they messed up. But I think that fits into the same category. There are a lot of copies of the manuscripts going back very close to the time of Jesus. What I think it means is, Jesus certainly understood, you know, what these two words were in Hebrew and the different meaning. To me, it means He wasn't as hung up or concerned about the tetragrammaton as some people are in our modern day.

But it's worth looking at some other terms that were introduced in the New Testament that I think say a lot about our relationship with God. Let's go to Luke chapter 1 while we're here.

A couple very important terms we haven't even addressed yet, but I think are worth looking at. Luke 1 and beginning in verse 30.

This is, of course, when Mary first finds out that she's pregnant and later it'll be revealed to Joseph, her husband, as well. An angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, you found favor with God. Behold, you shall conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and call his name Jesus. Now, of course, they weren't speaking English, so probably the angel didn't pronounce Jesus the way we just did. I should go on, though, and say, He will reign over the house of Jacob, forever his of his kingdom will be no end. Oh, I skipped. I meant to read verse 32. He will be great. He will be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. So, we see the introduction of the name Jesus, but also he could properly be called Son of the Highest. Name or a title, but Jesus could go around saying, Hi, I'm the Son of the Highest. He probably didn't, but people were angry at him for what the things he did say, but significantly, if he's the Son of the Highest, then the word the highest is also another a proper title or name for the true God. But Mary and Jesus, Mary and Joseph, were specifically told to name their son. My concordance, you know, lexicon indicated that the word that they were given would be pronounced in Greek, e-a-sus. They said they didn't pronounce English the way we say Jesus. They would have said in Greek, e-a-sus. That sounds a lot more like the Spanish I've heard. I guess that's a common name in Mexico and other places spelled like Jesus, but they pronounce it Jesus. That's the Greek version that came down from the Hebrew for the word we typically see in our Bible as Joshua or Yahashua or some people say Yeshua. That's common for those who attend church groups that say you have to use the Hebrew names. They refer to Jesus as Yeshua, typically, because they're using the Aramaic or Hebrew translation. That actually in Hebrew has a specific definition. The word for that where we see Joshua or Yahashua means that the Eternal will save. It's based on the word for the tetragrammaton. So, Jesus would once again God calls things what they are. He said, I want you to name this the Son the Eternal will save. It means literally salvation. Salvation from God. As a matter of fact, let's also, if you will, look at Matthew chapter 1. We'll see the version where an angel gave Joseph the news that was coming.

It's worth noting another name that could be applied. Matthew 1 says, quoting from proxy in Isaiah, says, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a son, and they'll call his name Emmanuel, which is translated God with us. And of course, Joseph rose from his dream and went ahead. It's interesting. I haven't seen any other places in the Bible where Jesus went by the name Emmanuel, but it certainly seems that he could have. And of course, we see the definition given right there. It means God with us. And that's based on the word El or Eloene.

Yeah, let's also, while we're in Matthew, turn to chapter 16. Matthew 16 beginning in verse 13. We can learn a little bit more about one of the things we call our Savior, the Son of God.

Of course, I just used two other titles that are perfectly appropriate. It's amazing. It's not hard to find words. If you want to say it without using a particular word, there's many others. And here's the type. Well, the question of what do people call me comes up. Matthew 16 and verse 13.

Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi. He asked his disciples, Who do men say that I, the Son of man, am? And they answered, of course, some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, some Jeremiah, or the prophets. He said, Who do you say I am? And Simon Peter said, You're the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now, we've covered a lot of terms right there. And Jesus answered and said, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah. Blessed blood is not revealed this to you, but my Father, who's in heaven. But this introduces a couple of things. One is Peter specifically said that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. The Greek word here is Christos, and it literally means one who's anointed, or the anointed one. And that was referring to many prophecies of one who is anointed or set aside, you know, anointed by God for a special job. In the Hebrew, the word for that exact same meaning is Messiah. So, when Jesus is called the Messiah, or Jesus Christ, they mean the same exact thing. They're just two words from different languages.

But that tells us, it refers to Jesus's role as High Priest, who would intervene and save mankind.

And I think it's interesting when Jesus asked that question, and Peter said, You're the Christos, the Son of God. Jesus didn't interrupt and say, No, no, you have to call me Yeshua. You have to use the Hebrew word, the proper pronunciation. Or, you know, he could have said, You need to call me an annual. That's my name. And, oh yeah, I made a note just to confess something myself. I don't know if any of you have ever done, ever did this when you were younger.

Because I learned the truth of what Christ meant a long time ago. But when I was young, I always heard the term Jesus Christ. I always assumed that Christ was His last name, that His dad was named Joseph Christ, and He married Mary. And none of you ever thought that?

Literally, I did. And then I realized that in our common English writing, we might put Jesus, comma, Christ. But that's why it's common, often in prayers, or sometimes people will say in the name of Jesus, the Christ. Because Christ is a different term. It's not His last name.

You said I'm confessing something in myself. But it was at least important, as I made that educational leap to understand so much more about His name and what He's called.

So, as I said, the way a person refers to himself or herself tells us something important about Him. If we look there in Matthew 16, verse 13, Jesus called Himself something different than Peter did. He said, What do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? So that's what He called Himself at that time. He didn't say, What do people say that I, the Yeshua, or I, the YHWH, He called Himself the Son of Man. And I got out my concordance and checked. He calls Himself that in the New Testament, 84 different times that that appears. Of course, there's the four gospel accounts, so some of them are different accounts at the same time. Jesus called Himself the Son of Man, then Peter called Him the Son of God. Both were correct. And I think that's a very important thing. I think Jesus calling Himself the Son of Man was a way of emphasizing that He was both. He was both God and man, because only by being God come in the flesh could He become the sacrifice that was necessary to pay for our sins. He had to have been God, who was our Creator, but He also had to become man and live a perfect life and qualify to, we believe, replace Satan as ruler of the world and qualify to be that perfect sacrifice. So, if God calls things what they are, He was calling Himself Son of Man not just as an aside, but there was a very important reason.

Of course, that term also appears. John 1.36, we'll see, John the Baptist called Him something a little bit different, but also significant, and I think related to what I was just discussing. John 1.36, John's there with two of His disciples, and He looks at Jesus as He walks, and He says, Behold, the Lamb of God! I don't know, I don't think that He was implying that was His name, but He was saying, This is the Lamb of God, this is the sacrifice.

And He appears by that name in Revelation. Matter of fact, I might just turn there, since I'm Revelation 5.

I thought I was going to go right to it. Revelation 5, verse 12, The loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who asslams, to receive power and riches, and strength and honor and blessing.

And down the next verse, The blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever. So here's another important title and name that Jesus the Christ wanted to go by. I think it's important understanding that we need to have. We need to understand that the Son of God and the Son of Man was the Savior of mankind. He was the Iesus, or the Yeshua, the One who was the Savior. Regardless of how we pronounce it, it means salvation. That's an important thing for us to take out of that.

Now, significantly in all this New Testament, I've been talking about Jesus, of course, and He's the central figure in the New Testament. But if He was the Son of God, that leaves another very important person to talk about, the One He was the Son of, or the Father.

I could have begun this section talking about the term Father, but I saved it for last because I really think it's the most important name or title that we need to understand.

The only one that we're specifically told that we should use. If you go to Matthew 6, and I'm going to look at it in Matthew, but there's a parallel account in Luke 11, verse 2. I'm going to Matthew 6 and verse 9. This is what's commonly called the Lord's Prayer.

I thought that didn't look right. I was in Mark.

Jesus is explaining how to pray. I'm not going to read all of that, but He specifically says, When you pray, or in this manner therefore say, Our Father in heaven. When you talk to God, what do you call Him? Do you have to use a particular Hebrew word? Jesus, the Son of God, said when you talk to Him, you say this, Our Father in heaven. Or we commonly say, Our Heavenly Father, using it as an adverb. But He is that one. He wants to be known as Father. That's what He is. He's the Father of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But He's also our Father, Your Father in mind. And that's what He wants to be known and called as.

I find that very significant. That the name or title that the Creator and the ruler of the universe wants us to use when we talk to Him isn't some Hebrew word that we don't know how to pronounce. Here in the Greek, it was translated from the word peder. I've never been sure if it's pronounced peder or potter, but it literally means Father. It's the same as, as a matter of fact, I passed by another place I wanted to turn because there's a couple related terms with that.

Yeah, another term you can find in Mark 14.

Oh, and I did count, actually. I was about to run right over this. In the New Testament, when I was counting words, sometimes I think it's significant just to see how many times a word is used. God being called Father appears 141 separate times. But you don't see places where there's a wrangling saying you have to use this Hebrew word or that Hebrew word. He's referred to as the Father most often. And as I said in Mark 14 in verse 36, there's something a little bit different, but I think significant. Here, when Jesus was praying, he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible. Jesus was at his time when he was sweating blood, getting ready to go into the crucifixion. And he prayed to his Father with great intensity, and he used that word Abba. And by the way, I'll make note, it appears also in Romans 8, 15, and also in Galatians 4, 6. I'm not going to turn there, but there are cases where the Apostle Paul refers to we as Christians coming to our Father and calling him Abba, Father, just as Jesus did. The scholars believe this came from either the Syriac or the Calvii, and that it came into Hebrew. And so it was used in Hebrew as a common word for Father, but meaning having a more personal relationship, like saying Daddy.

Daddy, Father, as Jesus cried out to him, you're able to take this from me if it be your will, but I want your will to be done. So when Jesus spoke in his most heart-rending time, he called him the equivalent of us saying Daddy. He didn't use, as I said, another Hebrew word that people would say, you can only be in God's family if you use that word.

And as I said, we commonly use the term God the Father and Jesus Christ, or sometimes God the Son. But we should always keep in mind that he wants us to know him as our Father, or as even our Daddy.

Now, I think in formal occasions we don't get up and say that. That makes me think, of course, Connor calls me Daddy all the time, but if he gets old enough to where he would ever get up in a formal setting like asking leading songs and services or something, he wouldn't introduce me as Daddy. He would probably say my dad, Mr. Dunkel, or something like that. But in a personal setting, when you're in your closest, it's okay. I still call my dad Dad. Of course, I don't mind referring to him as that term talking to others, but I never call him Frank, which that would seem weird anyway, since that's my name and his. But I just, if I'm not talking on the phone or we get together, say, hey Dad, and we talk. We're able to use that personal relationship. And when I refer to him to others, sometimes I'll say, my Father. So I think it's a fitting that we think of those terms as for our Father in Heaven, or the Great God who begets us with his Holy Spirit, who wants us to be born into his family. He's not frowning if we don't pronounce his name exactly correctly. He has many different names and titles, and he introduces himself. He has introduced himself to people by different names, depending on the setting. He might say, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's introduced himself as the Eternal One, or as just the Lord.

Of course, some of the titles we can see when we talk about him or Jesus, they range from, I AM THAT I AM, to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Prince of Peace, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.

I already mentioned the Almighty, the self-existent One, the YHWH, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Out of all those, though, the way that the Creator and Eternal revealed Himself, that's the most wonderful, I think, is as a family. That's why I wanted to look at John 1, verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God, indicating that there's a family. And God wanted to be known as the Father. And Jesus Christ referred to Himself as the Son, most often. So we're privileged to have a personal relationship with Jesus, the Savior, as our elder brother, and with our Father, the One who's in heaven.

So