“His name is ‘Master,’ ‘Savior,’ ‘Lion of Judah,’ ‘Blessed Prince of Peace.’ ‘Shepherd,’ ‘Fortress,’ ‘Rock of Salvation,’ ‘Lamb of God’ is He. ‘Son of David,’ ‘King of the Ages,’ ‘Eternal Life,’ ‘Holy Lord of Glory,’ His name is ‘Life.’”
As we end our study on the names of God, I pray that their meanings are resonating deep within you. So much so, that your whole being simply wants to kneel before your Creator and absorb His divine essence; knowing Him in an intimate way that only He can call you to know. To worship Him as Elohim, the triune sovereign of all that is known and unknown — Almighty God!
As our introductory article indicated, and as the lyrics from the chorus of Carman’s His Name Is Life states, God has many names and there are multiple variations of those names. Too many, in fact, for us to attempt to address in this blog series, but I hope that the ones I have chosen to highlight have opened your heart and mind up to the importance of getting to know them. God’s names do matter; they open us up to knowing Him in so many different ways. Growing us ever closer to Him, and making us into the true worshipers we were purposed to be.
So in closing, let’s recap briefly what we have covered:
– In article 1, of this series, we learned that Hebrew names are more than just formal titles. Hebrew names are sentences within themselves, meant to be descriptive of the individual’s character traits. God’s names are also descriptive of His divine character, and we first see an example of this by studying Elohim’s name Yahweh, which means “He IS,” or “He Exists.” We interpret this today as “I AM.”
– Article 2 brought us to examine the more popular variation of the name “Yahweh,” and that name is “Jehovah.” We looked into the argument that even though popular teachings state that both the names “Yahweh” and “Jehovah” mean “I AM” there is a possibility that this may not be correct. Upon studying how Hebrew was translated into Latin, and then later into English, we uncovered how there was a chance that this name “Jehovah” may have been a poor transliteration of God’s name, rather than an accurate translation.
– In article 3 we probed into the title of “Adonai,” which simply means “Lords” or “Masters.” When the Hebrews used this emphatic plural form of “Adon” it always was concerning Elohim, the triune God. We also studied this title further and came to realize that “Adonai” represented four key attributes of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit: 1) our triune Creator has power, authority, and influence over all of creation; 2) He is sovereign, superior, and dominates over all; 3) Almighty God’s mercy gives us the choice to serve Him; 4) our triune Creator has great skill and proficiency over all of creation.
– Article 4 investigated the meaning behind the name “El Shaddai.” We began with the Mesopotamian term “God of the mountain,” and followed through to the more popular English translation of “Almighty God.” But, it was upon examining the two parts of this compound name that we were able to see that the Hebraic practice of shortening a name of God (El from Elohim), and combining that shortened name with a descriptive attribute (i.e. Shaddai), could make the name “El Shaddai” translate as “God who IS Enough.”
– In article 5 we looked into the holiness of God. We came to understand that the word “holy” means “morally and spiritually excellent,” and we also came to realize that when God is called “holy,” or “kaddosh” in the original Hebrew, He is being called perfect, flawless, pure. We saw that God is without blemish, without anything that is considered wrong, both morally and spiritually. God truly is El Hakkadosh.
– Article 6 opened us up to understanding how essential it is for mankind to know God. To know not only God’s names and titles, but the very attributes of God that His names and titles invoke into our lives. This article focused on the greatest of all of God’s attributes — love.
– Names are words, and in article 7 we explored how words are a divine gift from God and that words have power! The first act of God’s powerful self exhibited in the Bible is His ability to speak, and with that speech creation came into being.
We also came to realize that evil words, the utterances of hate and destruction, are audible exhibitions of our fallen nature. Audible visuals of our separation from the divine Creator. But, just as God created mankind with words, and just as humanity separated themselves from God with words (Genesis 3:1-19), so did He redeem mankind with His very Word (Davar). That Word IS God, and bore the name Immanuel, “God with us” — Jesus the Christ.
– Lastly, article 8 revealed a very special title of God, and that title is “Abba Avinu” — Daddy our Father. God gives humanity the opportunity to know Him as our Daddy. To know that we are important to Him, so much so that even our own names can reflect and have an impact on the essence of our relationship with God. We looked at examples of this in Scripture when we examined Abram being renamed Abraham, when Jacob was being renamed Israel, and when Saul became known as Paul. We were able to see that our names, as well as God’s names, in fact all names are important.
Who knew that names were so paramount? Who knew that so much of God’s identity and character was divinely exposed to mankind by way of all those names? Even our own names can be a “door way” to our personality and character, or even to our relationship with the Almighty. As I stated in our introductory article, our lives should be places where God is a welcome fixture and so much so that we can shout out His name(s) whenever we feel His presence.
True worshipers cannot be ignorant or fear speaking of the one true God by name. True worshipers need to practice addressing Elohim by name when praying. If you experience the awesome provision of God in your life call upon El Shaddai and thank Him for being enough. If you need God’s loving mercy call out to Chesed. If God’s holiness moves over you and through you call out to El Hakkadosh and praise Him for being so perfect, and of course end your prayers by speaking of the divine Word of God, “in Jesus’ name we pray.” Jesus is the name above all names, the incarnate, living, breathing Davar — Word of God.
Selah (Pause/Reflect).
Now that we have learned just how to make our lives a place where God can know that we care enough to call upon Him by name, and now that we understand just how to become more intimate with the One who calls us by name, I hope you will take the time, on your own, to learn of God’s other names. That you will choose one of God’s divine names to study in your own personal worship time, per week, and that you will allow Elohim’s names to connect you with an attribute of Himself; an attribute that will call you to worship Him, whether corporately or individually. What is more important, you will be learning of the many wonderful ways there are to appropriately call upon our Adonai by name in your daily circumstances, for you will be growing into the true worshiper of God you were purposed to be.
His Name Is . . . by J. Scott Harden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
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His Name Is Life lyrics and music written by Carman. Copyright © 1983 CBS Inc.
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