Note: I have developed a set of slides on PowerPoint 10. If anyone is interested in having the .pptx file I will send it to you by Email. Send your request to me at sam@srmccormick.net with the subject Name of the Lord Slides and I will send them directly, along with a file of sermon notes with cues for changing/animating slides in Microsoft Word.
The Name of the Lord
I. The “genesis” of people calling on the Lord
In the third generation—with the first birth in Seth’s line-- people “began to call upon the name of the Lord.”
Gen 4:26 To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.
It was an event worth recording for all posterity.
Adam was now 235 years old.
After liberation from bondage in Egypt, Israelites were given 10 commands around which their whole system of law was centered.
The 3rd of those 10:
Exo 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.
The name of God was, and is, to be held in the highest reverence
How might we take the name of the Lord in vain? By swearing in a way that includes the word “God” in conjunction with a swear word?
Let’s consider how the priests of Malachi’s time were doing it, because there God spells it out:
Mal 1:6-14 - read
By offering flawed and worthless sacrifices in the name of God, they were taking God’s name in vain, as God, through the prophet, goes on to explain further in 2:1-2:
Mal 2:1-2 - read
Certainly we should not speak God’s name in connection with profane speech, but if we think that “taking the name of the Lord your God in vain” means only a profane epithet that includes “God” we are missing the point.
Taking the Lord’s name in vain is to take it lightly, as if it were nothing to us.
It is not only something we might do in speech.
The opening words of Jesus’ model prayer hallow, or declare high reverence and honor—indeed, worship, for the name of God.
Mat 6:9 Pray then like this: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”
What does “hallowed” mean?” Holy
It is the same as Moses encountered at the burning bush, and was instructed
“Take off the sandal from your feet; for the place you are standing is holy ground.”
When we go to God in prayer, we venerate his name, mentally taking the sandals from our feet.
How easy it is for us to rush into God's presence with some urgent concerns, presumptuously spelling out how he is to deal with it. I’ve heard it said that we must be v--e--r--y specific in making our requests to God, as if our requests, lacking detail and specificity, might mislead God into granting something other than we intend to be requesting.
We should begin prayer by turning our focus on our heavenly father, opening ourselves to his presence, putting ourselves under his sovereignty and as Jesus demonstrated, revering his name--for precisely speaking, Jesus shows us that it is God’s name that is hallowed.
II. A place God would choose for his name
Deu 12:10-11 But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord.
By Solomon’s time, the Israelites had been in Canaan many years, and the Lord had still not revealed where among the tribes he would choose for his name to dwell.
1 Kings 3:2 The people were sacrificing at the high places, however, because no house had yet been built for the name of the Lord.
Solomon built the temple David had want to build.
2 Chronicles 6:10 Now the Lord has fulfilled his promise that he made. For I have risen in the place of David my father and sit on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised, and I have built the house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.
God chose Jerusalem--specifically the temple Solomon built--as the place for his name to dwell.
2 Chronicles 7:16 For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.
III. “The name of the Lord” in scripture
There are hundreds of mentions of “the name of the Lord,” with slight variations (“in my name,” “ in his name,” “for his name’s sake,” which appear as interchangeable whether applied to the Father or Jesus.
John 1:1 “and the word was with God and the word was God.”
Abram, arriving in Canaan
Gen 12:8 Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
Abram, in southern Canaan
Gen 21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.
The ark of the covenant was called by “the name of God.”
2 Sa 6:2 And David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baale-judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who sits enthroned on the cherubim.
Elijah on Mt. Carmel challenging 850 false prophets:
1 Kings 18:23-24 Let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is God." And all the people answered, "It is well spoken."
1 Kings 18:32 and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar...
Naaman, Syrian military commander, disappointed with Elisha’s response to his plea for curing of his leprosy:
2 Kings 5:11 But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, "Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.
Job, in his misery:
Job 1:21 And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
David, sweet singer of Israel:
Psa 7:17 I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.
Psa 8:1 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Psa 20:7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
Psa 25:11 For your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.
Psa 31:3 For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name's sake you lead me and guide me;
Psa 69:30 I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
Psa 102:15 Nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory.
Unnamed Psalmists
Psa 113:1 Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord!
Psa 113:2 Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore!
Psa 113:3 From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised!
Psa 116:4 Then I called on the name of the Lord: "O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!"
Psa 116:13 I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord,
Psa 116:17 I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord.
Psa 118:26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.
cf. Mat 21:9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" (Hosanna meaning “Lord, save.”)
Psa 135:13 Your name, O Lord, endures forever, your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages.
Psa 148:5,13 Let them praise the name of the Lord! For he commanded and they were created.
13 Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven.
Solomon:
Pro 18:10 The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.
Daniel in Babylon:
Daniel, receiving in a vision the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, said:
Dan 2:20 Daniel answered and said: "Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.
The theme continues in the gospel period with “the name of the Lord” applied to Jesus:
In Caesarea, at the home of Philip the evangelist
Act 21:13 Then Paul answered, "What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."
Paul explaining to the Roman church there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile
Rom 10:13 …for "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
Paul’s salutation in his first letter to the Corinthian church
1 Cor 1:2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
Later in that letter
1 Cor 6:9-11 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Paul describing the immeasurable power of Christ
Eph 1:20-21 [God worked]…in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus
Col 3:17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Peter, about bearing insults
1 Pe 4:14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
Paul to his protégé’ Timothy
2 Ti 2:19 But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: "The Lord knows those who are his," and, "Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity."
James cites the prophets as example of suffering patiently
Jas 5:10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
James offers a remedy for sickness
Jas 5:14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
IV. What is meant by “the name of the Lord”
What is “the name of God” anyway?
Moses wanted to know that, because he expected the people of Israel to ask.
Exodus 3:13-15 ESV Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'The Lord, 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, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.
God answered, “I AM.”
From the verb to be.
My name means “the self-existing one.”
Originally, in the Hebrew bible (the OT in our bibles), God’s name was represented by the four consonants corresponding to our English letters YHWH.
Those four Hebrew letters are called the “tetragrammaton.”
This is a proper name, the personal name of God in scripture, not a title or a general noun.
How did the term “Lord” come to be used to represent the personal name of God?
The tetragrammaton (which is Hebrew) is translated “Lord” almost 7,000 times in the OT.
This is ironic, because Lord is actually a mistranslation with a different meaning—not even a proper noun—albeit borne of the good intention of holding to original, true name to sacred to utter.
It seems clear that, until about the time of the prophet Ezra, the Israelites spoke the name of God (YHWH) freely. Since ancient Hebrew had only consonants, no written vowels, it is unknown how the name was pronounced originally.
(However it was not pronounced Jehovah, because there is no “J” sound in the Hebrew language. The “J” sound was introduced when the name was Latinized.)
Sometime after the time of Ezra, they came to feel that the name YHWH was so holy that it should not be pronounced. (Feared to pronounce the name of God, lest in doing so they should be deemed to take the name of God in vain, or to blaspheme his name and be accounted worthy of death)
Lev 24:16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the name, shall be put to death.
So whenever YHWH was written in the text, they read it aloud as “Adonai” which means “(my) lord/master,” the word “Lord” itself not necessarily implying diety which in their speech they shied away from.
Name Frequency
YHWH 6807
Other names – El, El-Shaddai, Adonai, etc.
Elohim 2340
Adonai 428
Sabaoth 278
El 221
Elahh 74
Eloah 52
Shaddai 48
Yah, Elyon, Adon,Illay 111
In the sixth or seventh century some Jews began to place the vowels points for "Adonai" among the consonants YHWH to remind the reader of Scripture to say "Adonai" (“Lord” in our language) whenever he read YHWH, instead of saying the name, at the time considered too sacred to be pronounced.
V. What does God’s name mean – or Christ’s when it is spoken of in the same way?
1. Identity –
A name as identification serves to distinguish one the one named from others, labeling a person or item as distinct from others – but there is no God BUT our God. So God’s name as identification does not here serve that purpose.
It serves purposes other than identification.
2. In scripture, the name conveys knowledge about who is named.
The angel who visited Joseph
Mat 1:21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." (Jesus may be translated “savior.”)
cf. Mat 1:23 (from Isaiah 7:14) "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us).
The names given to Mary’s child proclaimed the most important things about him and his role in God’s plan
Jesus means “savior;” Immanuel means “God with us.”
3. Reputation – character as recognized by others
God’s name was his reputation throughout the world when the Israelites were in Canaan.
Deu 28:9-10 NASB "The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. "So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will be afraid of you.
Pro 22:1 A good name is to be more desired than great wealth, Favor is better than silver and gold.
4. Signifies authority, deity, power
David coming out to fight Goliath
1 Sa 17:45 Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
Peter, to a lame man
Act 3:6 But Peter said [to a lame man], "I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!"
Peter, answering the rulers and elders
Act 4:5-10 On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, "By what power or by what name did you do this?" Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead--by him this man is standing before you well.
All power and authority and sovereignty is conferred on Jesus Christ
Php 2:9-11 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
5. The name of Jesus is key to our salvation
Act 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
6. Shows ownership, support and protection
Deu 28:10 And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you.
7. Basis for action or authoritative speech
Levi (the Levitical priesthood)
Deu 18:5, 7 For the Lord your God has chosen him [Levi] out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for all time…
vs7 and ministers in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand to minister there before the Lord,
Prophets spoke in the name of the Lord
Deu 18:22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
8. A basis for blessing in settling issues, Levitical priests bless disputants in the name of the Lord
Deu 21:5 Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to him and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word every dispute and every assault shall be settled.
9. Conduit, or avenue, for speaking to God.
Joh 14:6, 13-14 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
13-14 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
VI. What is the lesson?
Is “calling on the name of the Lord,” as it began with the 3rd generation of man, means simply “to pray?”
Scripture shows it to be that, and more.
We have seen that "the name of the Lord," or all the variant ways of saying that in the Bible, do not just stand for:
• an identifying label, or…
• …the way to address our prayers
• God’s reputation among his people and the world
• his authority
• even his power
The "name" of God biblically is the whole being of God.
To know his name is to know his identity, yes, but more than that.
To know his name is to know his character, his personality his temperament, his love, his mercy, his power, and every act of power, wisdom, tenderness, and grace that has manifested these qualities and led us to understand that every characteristic, attribute, and quality is possessed infinitely in the name of God.
When the Psalmist declares (Psalm 9:10)
"...those who know your name put their trust in you"
he is saying, "Those who truly know who and all that you are put their trust in you.
God has allowed us to know him through the scriptures and the incarnation of his Son, Jesus Christ, who is “the exact representation of his being" (Hebrews 1:3).
To hallow the name of God, then, is to magnify, honor and revere all that he is in every infinite attribute.
Though fully comprehending the infinite God is far beyond the capacity of the finite human mind, though, God can be known, insofar as he has revealed himself.
And he has revealed himself, abundantly providing everything we need to know about God in order to know God.
Invitation:
Earlier, we noted that Paul wrote to Rome,
…everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
That can be you. You can be saved from your sins.
Paul was not saying that the comprehensive duty of man consists only of a verbal formula.
He was saying that—whether Jew or Gentile—it is the people who are calling upon the name of the Lord who are saved. Those who do not call on the Lord’s name will not be saved.
Calling upon the Lord’s name implies subordinating ourselves fully to him in reverence and obedience.
The name of the Lord is cited by Peter in telling the Jewish nation how to get rid of their sins:
Act 2:38 And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
You can obey that very command today.
You can be baptized in the name of the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit - Matthew 28:29
– buried in water in the likeness of his death, raised up from the water in the likeness of his resurrection. - Romans 6:3-6
