MONDAY
Christianese If You Please
Our Christianese for this week is a list of things we tend to say in prayer.
- I echo that
- hedge of protection
- traveling mercies
- unspoken prayers
So if you’re praying and words aren’t coming to mind go ahead and reach for one of these gems.
*I’ve been trying to theme our Christianese If You Please with the topic for the week. This one is completely unrelated.
Our campaign is called The Things We Say. In this campaign we are talking about some of the phrases that should season the vocabulary of Christians.
This week I don’t have a specific phrase to say. Instead, our theme is to simply address one another with our true names. The phrase, “what’s in a name” comes from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Juliet says, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. This statement expresses the idea that a name is just a label for something and it doesn’t change the essence of what something truly is.
Throughout Scripture, however, names often, not always, carry more of a significance than simply a designation an individual. Sometimes the name is tied to the circumstances of the person’s birth. Moses is named as he is drawn from the water by Pharaoh’s daughter. His name sounds similar to the Hebrew word for “draw out”. Isaac, which means laughter, is named such because his parents laughed at the prophecy of his birth (Gn. 17:17; 18:12; 21:3-6). Names can also indicate what the individual will do. Isaiah means “Yahweh saves” foreshadowing his prophetic message of God’s salvation.
God’s personal name is not God. God simply describes his nature as divine. His personal name is Yahweh, which he revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. This name means “I am who I am” and implies his active presence in creation and his eternal existence. God did not reveal his name to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but chose to reveal it to Moses (Ex. 6:2-3). God’s people knowing God’s name, and God knowing his people’s name, implies intimacy and covenant relationship.
Exodus 33:12 12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’
Exodus 33:18–19 18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’
This relationship is so intimate that God’s people are then called by his name and said to be in his name.
2 Chronicles 7:14 14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
Isaiah 43:7 7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
Some scholars take the 4th commandment (You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain) to carry this idea. The people of Israel were those who were identified with Yahweh. For them to take his name is to be identified with him. So the commandment, in this reading, would be less about saying God’s name and more about our whole way of life. Our way of life needs to be representative of Yahweh, his character, his truth and his life.
John describes coming to faith in Jesus as believing in his name (Jn. 3:18). The names of the saints are written in heaven (Lk. 10:20). Christians are kept in the name of Jesus (Jn. 17:11). In the New Testament we come to see that God exists as a Trinity and his name therefore is “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). When we are baptized we are baptized into the name (note the singular) of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God often delivers his people as those who bear his name for the sake of his name (Ez. 20:9).
The name is thus a summary way of stating what God is in himself (his name is all that is known to be true about him and his motives of action) and also what God is to others, allowing them to know his name (letting them into his truth) as sharing his name with them (letting them into his fellowship)
J. A. Motyer, “Name,” ed. D. R. W. Wood et al., New Bible Dictionary (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 801–802.
Names, especially God’s name, in Scripture play a large role in God’s narrative of salvation. Yahweh is the name that God gave to Moses to distinguish himself from all other false gods. God’s people are called by God’s name. We identify with him. We are no longer our own but belong body and soul to God. He has revealed to us his name and he calls us by his name.
Reflection
Think on this concept for a moment today. We are called by the name of God Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are so closely in Christ that we bear his name. This is how we should view ourselves and this is how we should think of one another in the church.
In the words of C.S. Lewis “You have never met an ordinary person.” How much more true is that of those who are now made new in Christ and bear his name.