In God's Name

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Well, I'm excited tonight to return to our study of the doctrine of God – we're going to look at, take sort of a jet tour through the names of God, that is, not all of the names of God in scripture, but those major primary names of God that are used in both the Old and New Testament.

I don't know about when you were having your children, but one of the great turmoils that you experience as a soon-to-be parent is what to name the child. I mean, you experience these various pressures – there are, of course, grandparents and uncles and aunts who all vie for an opportunity to be remembered in the name of the child. Of course, often their names are a bit odd, and you don't want to do that to your child, and so you start looking through books. Now, I don't know if you've done that, but you actually go to the bookstore and you purchase a book of common names, and some of them have meaning, some of them don't, but you sort of track through this book looking for a label for your child.

I heard recently, perhaps you did, about the most popular names in 2003, it was in the news. The boys in 2003, the most popular boys' names were in order, from one to five, Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Matthew and Andrew – a very solid list of biblical names. The girls, the top five girls' names in 2003 – and this is off of the Social Security Administration's website, they keep track of these things when Social Security numbers are registered and asked for – were Emily, Emma, Madison, Hannah and Olivia; those were the top girls' names. Well, I got a little curiosity, I thought – well, I wonder what the names were in the 1800's; let's see how far back they go. Well, they actually do have a list of names from about 1880 – here were the top five male names in 1880: John, William, Charles, George, and James, a lot of good English names still from our heritage there. The female names, top five in 1880, were Mary, Anna, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Minnie.

When we think about names and when you look at that list of names, for the most part, those names don't have meaning. Some of them are biblically based, and therefore they have meaning because of the attachment to the character from scripture. But – by the way, I'll throw this in for free, I thought it was interesting – from 1880 to 1900, the number one male name every year was John, and the number one female name every year for that 20-year period was Mary. So, there was a lot of both British and biblical background behind the names, but for the most part, the names that we use are merely handles or labels meant to distinguish one person from another. My name is Tom – Thomas, technically – it comes from a biblical character. I'm a doubter, what can I say? But really, my parents gave it to me because it sounded good; it sounded like a good British name to fit the name Pennington. For us, names are just that – they're labels, they're tags. Sometimes, people try to get away with very odd tags or labels – you may remember a few years ago, when the rock musician who was known as Prince became the musician formerly known as Prince because he tried to change his name to an unpronounceable symbol. What do you tell the hostess at the restaurant when you're trying to get a table, you know, what's your name? Well, it's an unpronounceable symbol – odd.

But when it comes to God, and when it comes to the scripture, names are never merely labels; instead, they have significance. For example, God, in Genesis 17:5, God changes Abram's name, which means exalted father, to Abraham, father of a multitude. What's ironic about that is, the man didn't have one child when God changed his name to father of a multitude. You have to be a man of faith to live among your neighbors and be called father of a multitude when you don't have one child and you're over 80 years old. To Joseph in the New Testament, God was very specific about what His Son's earthly name would be – I want you to call Him Jesus, Yahweh saves. At the very beginning of scripture, this whole concept of a name meaning something was reflected in man's choices of names as well – you remember Adam had the chance to name his wife; he called her Eve, which means living, in testimony of God's grace that their lives had been spared, and sort of anticipating God's goodness and fulfilling His redemptive promise of Genesis 3:15. Then Eve follows suit in Genesis 4:1 – she names her first child Cain, which means gotten or brought forth, because she said "with the help of the Lord," I have brought forth a man. You know, there's one school of thought – and I'm not sure I agree with this, but it's interesting – there's one school of thought that you can literally interpret the Hebrew from that verse, Genesis 4:1, "I have gotten the man child, even the Lord." Some believe that Eve thought this might have been this first child of hers, the promised redeemer of Genesis 3:15 – turned out to be far from that.

But a name meant something – in the ancient world, when you gave someone a name, it was usually for two reasons; first of all, to commemorate some great historical or religious event, some event in life. For example, if you turn to Genesis – you see I mentioned Genesis 4:1 – this was the event of her first child in God's promise in letting her live and letting her be the mother of all living things, all living people. But notice 4:25 – "Adam had relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, for she said, 'God has appointed me another seed in the place of Abel, for Cain killed him.'" It commemorated God's goodness in giving her another child to replace the one that Cain had taken. This is typical throughout the Old Testament, to commemorate some great event in the life of the family or in the life of the nation. And secondly, a child was named to denote the parents' hope for, or assessment of, the child's character. Genesis 5:29: Lamech had a son when he was 182 years old, and he called the name of his son, verse 29, Noah, saying "this one will give us rest" – literally, will comfort us – "in our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed."

But the most famous one of these is Genesis 25 – notice verse 26. These two boys are born; Esau was the first – verse 25, they named him Esau because "he was red all over like a hairy garment." Verse 26: "Afterward, his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau's heel," so he was named Jacob, which literally means one who takes by the heel or one who supplants, anticipating, the parents were, the character of this one already demonstrated as he came out of the womb.

It's in this last sense, where the name described or anticipated the character of the person, it's in this sense that God reveals Himself to us in names. We don't really know what the names are, that is, what the names are designated within the Trinity – we assume that they are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that if there is communication where names are needed, that those names are used. We don't know that; it may be that those names were merely condescension for us to understand the relationship between the members of the Trinity. But when we look at the names that have been revealed to us, we know that those names are intended to communicate something about God; they're given to us to reveal the character of God. Louis Berkhof, in his excellent Systematic Theology, writes this: "In Oriental thought, a name was never regarded as a mere vocable, but as an expression of the nature of the thing designated." In the most general sense of the word, then, the name of God is His self-revelation. It is a designation of Him as He reveals Himself, especially in His relations to men. The names of God are not of human invention, but of divine origin, though they are all borrowed from human language and derived from human and earthly relations – they are anthropomorphic; you remember that expression? They are anthropomorphic and mark a condescending approach of God to man. When we look at the primary names of God in the Bible, we're looking at God trying to help us understand what He's like, and who He is. His names have meaning, so I want us tonight to look at those major names of God in the Old Testament, as well as the New, and see what we can learn about the character of our great God.

Let's begin, as would be appropriate, with the Old Testament, and I'm not going to look, as I said, at every name – we're just going to look at the ones that occur most frequently in the Old Testament. It begins with the three Hebrew words El, Elohim and Elyon. El, Elohim and Elyon – the English translation of these words is simply God. The New Testament equivalent is the word Theos, which you've heard means God. The meaning of these terms means, probably, El means one who is strong and powerful. This word El is used 217 times in the Old Testament for the true God; powerful, strong.

The other words, the other two that I cited there – first of all, Elohim is a plural form of El; it's more than one. It's a plural of majesty – not, probably, primarily a reference to the Trinity, but rather that the idea of the "royal we," if you will, as we speak in English – it's a plural of majesty about the greatness of God. It's used 2,500 times in the Old Testament for the one true God. We don't know exactly what word it derives from; there are two possibilities of what this word means. It may come from an Arabic root that means to fear; if so, Elohim would mean he who is to be feared. More likely, it comes from the root El, and it means the mightiest one. The mightiest one – it's interesting that this name for God, Elohim, is used often in connection with a couple of activities, first of all with creation. You go to those passages that deal with God as creator, Genesis 1:1, and you have Elohim. Psalm 19:1, that great passage about God as creator, you have Elohim – it speaks of God as mighty, powerful, creator. In Isaiah 45 – turn there for a moment, Isaiah 45, and notice verse 18. "For thus says the Lord, Yahweh, who created the heavens (He is the Elohim who formed the Earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), I am Yahweh, and there is none else." When the scripture wants to refer to God as creator, it often resorts to this term for God, Elohim, because He is the mightiest one, and that might, that strength, that power is most demonstrated in creation. We see that, don't we? I mean, when we stand as we did the other night at our back windows and watch the torrents of rainfall and watch the lightning streak across the sky, watch the wind hurl the trees, we're reminded of God's great power, and it's demonstrated in His creation – the mightiest one, He's the creator.

But you also see this name of God often designating His sovereignty – it's interesting; this expression is used in a number of ways. He's called "Elohim of all the earth" in Isaiah 54:5, "Elohim of all flesh," Jeremiah 32:27, "Elohim of heaven," Nehemiah 2:4, and "Elohim of Elohim" in Deuteronomy 10:17. The idea is, He is the mightiest one in His sovereignty, and this is going to be a common theme you're going to see in some of the names of God tonight. God, in wanting to communicate to us, wants us to understand one very crucial lesson: He is God, He is in charge, He is sovereign. And this phrase, or rather, this word Elohim points to God's sovereignty – He's in charge.

El Elyon, as it's often – you've heard that expression, literally means from the Hebrew expression, the most high one or the most exalted one. It's interesting – turn to Genesis 14. This expression, the most high one, is used in Genesis 14:19-20. This is in the context of God's promise to Abraham, or to Abram as he was at that point – verse 17: "Then after his return from the defeat of" these kings, "the King of Sodom went out to meet him in the valley of Shaveh, that is … Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. Now he was priest of God most high," El Elyon. And "he blessed him and said, 'Blessed be Abram of' El Elyon,'" literally, creator, "'of heaven and earth, and blessed be El Elyon, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.'" The point was that God was owner, possessor, creator of heaven and earth.

When you think about something you create, there's a very important point to be had here – the reason the new American Standard translates – I read it "creator," it's translated "possessor" – is because when you create something, you have a right to that thing – it belongs to you. God is our creator, and therefore we belong to Him. He created the heavens and the earth; therefore, the heavens and the earth belong to Him – He is the possessor of the heavens and earth. By the way, this is why evolution is such a dangerous thing, because it removes ownership from God – if God did not create, then God is not the owner. And that's why Satan has sought so much to supplant the role of God as creator, because if God is creator, He's owner, and if He's owner, then He has a right to say what happens with the creature, what we do, how we behave.

You see this same expression of God as God most high, the most exalted one, in a number of contexts where we're talking about God as the creator, the owner, the possessor of everything. I've been reading a book right now called Pagans in the Pews – it's interesting because basically the writer is making the point that we, as Christians, have been influenced by the pagan mindset of our world. If you ask the typical pagan, well, they won't necessarily be able to articulate it, but if you could somehow get in their minds and understand their view of the world, they have bought into the evolutionary view of the world, that is, that the world is a closed, materialistic, mechanistic system, and it just ticks along. The scripture says God is the creator, and God is also the sustainer, the owner, the one who keeps everything functioning, moment by moment, but most Christians have lost touch with that – they don't think of God that way. If you talked to them about – R.C. Sproul, out at the Shepherd's Conference, gave the illustration, he held his watch up and dropped it, and he said, what do you think just happened there? And he said, if you tend to answer to that question, well, that's the law of gravity, that's a fixed law in a closed mechanistic system, then you're thinking like a pagan. Because, yes, God has instituted that basic law, but God is the one who sustains it, who keeps it functioning, who keeps what we call the law of gravity functioning moment by moment. This name for God deals with God as the creator, the possessor, the owner, the sustainer of His creation, and we've lost touch with that. Acts 17:28, Paul says, in God "we live and move and exist." God is the ground of all life, He's the ground of all action and He's the ground of all existence – nothing exists outside of Him, He is the most high one, the exalted one.

There's a second major name used for God; we looked at one group, El, Elohim, and El Elyon, all meaning the mightiest or the most exalted, the strong one – the second one is Adonai. Adonai – the English translation of this is Lord. You'll notice that in your Bible, in the Old Testament, when you read the word Lord with a capital L and then lower-case o-r-d, you're probably reading the Hebrew word Adonai – the New Testament equivalent is Kurios. The meaning of this word comes from a Hebrew word that means to rule over; it literally means ruler, lord, commander, master, or in the colloquial, boss – He's in charge. It conveys the idea of God's absolute authority. You see this in a number of places – turn to Joshua 3:11. "Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Adonai of all the earth is crossing over ahead of you into the Jordan." You see, this word is often not used so much as a name as a title meaning master, ruler. He is here called the Adonai of all the earth, the master, the ruler, the commander of the entire earth. You see the same principle again in Psalms, turn to Psalm 86:4. Here you get the context of how this word really is used – verse 1 says:

Incline Your ear, O Yahweh, and answer me, for I am afflicted and needy. Preserve my soul, for I am a godly man. You are my Elohim, save Your servant who trusts in You. Be gracious to me, O Adonai, for to You I cry all day long. Make glad the soul of Your servant (watch this) Make glad the soul of Your servant, for to You, O Adonai, I lift up my soul.

You see the picture, the word picture behind this word Adonai – he's saying, I am Your servant, I'm Your slave, and You are my master, my Adonai, my ruler, the one to whom I submit, the one in charge of my life. It conveys this idea of absolute authority.

You know, we have a hard time appreciating this concept of being slaves to a master or being servants to a king, to a ruler. I've long said that we have a bit of a disadvantage; while I'm grateful, as you are, to be in a country where we have the freedoms to express ourselves in votes and so forth, there is a negative that comes with that as Christians, because we live in a culture that doesn't understand the principle of sovereignty. Nobody's sovereign, except for we the people. But our problem isn't merely that it's hard for us to comprehend the concept of sovereignty – it's not merely a lack of knowledge and experience with the whole concept of sovereignty and kings, but a predisposition against it. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the Revolutionary War slogan – well, Friday night, my family, we have some of Sheila's family that's come to be with us over the weekend, enjoying some of the area and seeing some of the things. Well, no trip to our home would be complete without a visit to Babe's, so we went there Friday night, and I was really shocked as we were standing there, waiting for a table which you do a lot of there. And I looked just above the door as you're going to exit Babe's – there is a sign above the door that is exactly that, the Revolutionary War slogan, and it says this: "We owe allegiance to no crown." "We owe allegiance to no crown" – on a human level, there's a ring of defiance there. There's a ring of, we're in charge, we're a democracy, we're a republic, or we should be, but now we're a democracy, I suppose. But there's that ring of defiance against anyone who would be king – there is within us as Americans, a sort of predisposition against the concept of sovereignty, of someone who rules, who can say, whether you think it's fair or not, this is what's going to be done, and nobody can stop his hand. But that's the nature of God, and that's what this word Adonai means, it means God is in charge.

We read this morning Psalm 103 – while the word Adonai doesn't appear there, the concept does. Remember Psalm 103:19 – "Yahweh has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all." There's nothing outside of God's control; that's what this word means. He's Adonai, He's master, He's sovereign, as we read in the passage in Joshua, over all the earth and, we could add, over the universe, over heaven. Nothing is outside of His reign and power, and that's what the psalmist says here, David says. His sovereignty rules over all, and he goes on to include, notice verse 20, the angels of heaven, the hosts of heaven, and then verse 22, "all you works of His," and then he ends with "in all places of His dominion." God's sovereignty is absolute, and it's extensive – nothing is excluded from it. It's important that we understand, as believers, that there is no stray molecule in the universe, because if there were one stray molecule in the universe, then eventually that stray molecule could unseat God and make God less than He is. Think about it – you remember that saying you learned when you were young? For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. For want of a rider, the battle was lost. For want of the battle, the war was lost. If there's one small molecule out from under the control of God, then eventually that molecule could unseat God. There is not one – He is the sovereign over everything; He's Adonai.

There's another word in the Old Testament that you've heard before, you know a little Hebrew – Shaddai. Shaddai – the English translation of this is God Almighty; its New Testament equivalent, we'll look at in a few minutes, is Pantokrator. You probably haven't heard that one – that one doesn't fit into a song as well as Shaddai. This one is used 48 times in the Old Testament, and here's an interesting little note – of those 48 times, 31 times it's used in Job. Now, why would that be? Turn to Exodus 6:1. God is prompting Moses to action, and He says this in verse 1:

"Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh, for under compulsion he will let them go, and under compulsion he will drive them out of his land." God spoke further to Moses and said this to him, "I am Yahweh, and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, but by My name Yahweh, I did not make Myself known to them."

Now what's God saying here? Well, obviously, the name Yahweh was known earlier; you see it in a number of passages in Genesis. And so, that's not what He's saying here; we'll talk about that when we get to Yahweh. But notice what He does say – He says, by My name, El Shaddai, I was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – in other words, My primary revelation of My character to the patriarchs was in the name El Shaddai. Well, when were the events of the book of Job – when did they take place? Job lived during the patriarchal period, during the times of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and so it's appropriate that the large number of appearances of this name occur in the book of Job.

Now, what does it mean? Its meaning depends on the root word it's derived from, and there are three possibilities. The first is from a verb meaning to destroy, in which case it would mean power – God of power. There's another word – that word, by the way is shadad – there's another Hebrew word shad, it's a noun, and it means breast. And in this case, it would say God is the breasted one, or would be an image of saying God is the provider, the nourisher. It's interesting – in Genesis 17:1-8, when God talks to Abraham, who had not yet received the son that he was promised, and He tells him He's going to make him fruitful – when He names him, you know, father of a multitude. God tells Abraham that He is El Shaddai – He is the nourisher, the provider. He's able to succor His people and to supply their every need – Abraham, I will provide a son for you, I'm capable of doing that. But the most common way that this word is understood, and what I believe it means is, it comes from a word for mountain, shadu, an Akkadian noun meaning mountain. It speaks of mighty, permanent, immovable.

You know, this is a wonderful word, especially when you understand its derivation – turn to Psalm 91. I want to show you something that will encourage you as it encourages me. The psalmist writes, in verse 1, "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of Shaddai," will abide in the shadow of El Shaddai. Now, what's the image behind here? The image of this verse is this – we live in a world filled with dangers, we understand that. But in the ancient world, the safest place was always the highest place – they didn't have jet planes that could swoop down from the sky and take down a fortress that you would build. So, if you could get to the highest place, even the most powerful army would have difficulty getting to you, because they would have to overcome your defenses and you would have the upper hand in everything that you could jettison toward them and knock them down the mountain. That's why some of you have been to Masada – you understand why that was so important in the ancient world. If you could get on top of a mountain, if you could get on a high place, then even the mighty Roman army couldn't take you. You remember that there were a handful of Jewish zealots who took Masada and stayed the entire Roman army for a period of time until Rome could build a siege ramp to get up to the top – a high place was the safe place.

Now, with that mindset, the writer of the psalm, he says this: God is the permanent, immovable place of refuge. Think about it – if you lived in those ancient times, if the highest place was always the safest place, then what would be the most comforting? To live in the shelter or shadow of a great mountain, because in the shadow of the mountain, you knew that if trouble came, you could flee for the hill, for the high place where you couldn't be attacked, where you couldn't be hurt, where you couldn't be taken. Nothing would be more comforting than to know that you lived in the shadow of a great mountain to which you could run for safety. So, read verse 1 again with that in mind – "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of El Shaddai," the mountain. "I will say to Yahweh, 'My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.'" God is mighty, He's permanent, He's immovable, He's a place of safety to run into, He's a place of refuge – He's El Shaddai.

By far, the most common Old Testament designation of God is the name you've heard me use several times tonight – Yahweh. The English translation in the KJV is Jehovah, and I won't go into all of the history of that, but I'll just tell you this – essentially, Jehovah comes from marrying the Hebrew letters, the Hebrew consonants with the vowels for Adonai. You remember that the Jews wouldn't pronounce, because of a misunderstanding of a verse in Leviticus, they wouldn't pronounce this name of God, Yahweh. And so, when they came to that name in the Old Testament, when they came to it as I have tonight, instead of pronouncing it, they would read instead Adonai. So, over time, the vowels of Adonai attached to the consonants of Yahweh, and when you anglicize that it becomes Yahowa, or Jehovah. It's translated, in most English Bibles, Lord, in all caps – when you see the word Lord in all caps, that is God's personal name. This is the most frequent designation for God in the Old Testament, about 6,000 times – theologians call it the Tetragrammaton, tetra meaning four and grammaton meaning letters – the four letters. Four Hebrew consonants, YHWH, and we're not positive of the pronunciation, but we believe it's Yahweh. It was used in Genesis 9:26 and 15:2, but as I read earlier in Exodus 6, its full complete revelation, that is, what God wanted to communicate with the name Yahweh wasn't known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – He made it known instead to Moses, and the time after that.

What exactly does this name mean? Well, I want you to turn to Exodus 3, because that's where God introduces this name to Moses. You remember the story – I'm not going to go through the entire chapter here, but beginning in verse 10, God is giving Moses his mission. He says, "Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt." But Moses wasn't real eager for this job, so he says to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?" Now, you might think that he's just, at this point, deferring, that he's genuinely a humble man, and we know that he was – Numbers tells us he was the meekest man in all the Earth. But you will see – if you kept reading, you would see that God eventually gets frustrated with Moses because it becomes an issue of just disobedience – Moses doesn't want to take the job. But he says God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and in verse 12, God says to him, "Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who sent you: When you've brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain." Verse 13: "Then Moses said to God, 'Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, "the God of your fathers has sent me to you." Now they may say to me, "what is His name?"'" Now, you have to understand the context – remember, the children of Israel went down into Egypt in the time of Joseph; we're now several hundred years later, and Moses, in about 1445, about 400 years later, and Moses says, you know, a lot of them may have even forgotten the name of the God of Israel; they have immersed themselves in the culture of Egypt – so, who do I say sent me? Verse 14: "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM,' and He said, 'Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.'"

Now, what's going on here? This name of God that's described for us is, as God pronounces it "I am" in verse 14, is the first person of the Hebrew verb to be – I am. When we come to it in scripture and it's Yahweh, translated Lord in all caps, we refer to God as He is. Yahweh doesn't mean I am, Yahweh means He is. In Exodus 3:14, He called Himself I am, but we refer to Him as, He is – what does this mean? It's describing God's self-existence; He is simply the one who is. It's interesting – keep your finger there, but turn back to John, because Jesus uses this same expression regarding His self-existence in John 8. In John 8, He's talking about Abraham and the fact that Abraham, verse 56: "'Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.' So the Jews said to Him, 'You're not yet 50 years old and have You seen Abraham?'" What a ridiculous thing to say, is what they're saying – they're saying that's silly, You're not yet 50! "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.'" Jesus takes the words from the mouth of God in Exodus 3 and speaks them to describe Himself. He doesn't say He is, as you and I would say, but He says, I am. He's using it just as God does in Exodus 3 to describe Himself as the self-existent one; that is, He depends on nothing and no one for His existence. In fact, they understood this reference – look at the last verse of John, John 8:59. "Therefore, they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple." They understood what Jesus was claiming - He wasn't saying, as they should have said, He is, but He was saying I am, claiming to be the person of Israel's God. When we speak of God as He is, we're saying that God is responsible for all existence, including His own – He depends on nothing and on no one for His existence.

But there's another meaning in His name – notice, back in Exodus 3:14, the first way God puts it to Moses is this: "I AM WHO I AM." Now, the verb for to be in Hebrew can be translated a number of different ways, but probably, the message here is this. We would say it this way, He is that He is, that is, He is always the same, yesterday, today, and forever. He's the same God as in the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He's the same God today, and He'll be the same God in the future. You'll see that in Exodus 3:15, He interprets it that way. "God, furthermore, said to Moses, 'Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, "Yahweh, who is 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 this is My memorial-name to all generations.'" He's saying, listen, I haven't changed – I'm the same God, who was the God of Abraham and of Isaac and Jacob – tell them that. Tell them He is that He is, He always will be what He always has been, is another way to translate it. He always will be what He always has been. One writer puts it this way:

He will be what He has been for the patriarchs, what He is now, and what He will remain – for His people, He will be everything. The one who appears to Moses is not a new or strange God, but is the God of the fathers, the unchangeable, the immutable one, the eternally self-consistent one, the one who never leaves or forsakes His people, but ever seeks His own and ever saves them, who is unchangeable in His grace, in His love, in His succor, who will be what He is, since He ever remains Himself.

That's what God was saying through Moses – listen, not only am I self-existent. I'm just the one who is, I don't depend on anything for My existence. You do; you depend, as you sit here tonight, you depend for every breath, as I do, on God to sustain your being. But God depends on absolutely nothing – He is self-existent, and He wants us to know that. He wants us to know He is the one who is, and He wants us to know that He is now and always will be what He always has been, eternally consistent.

It's interesting – this name is used in a number of combinations in the Old Testament, and I won't go through each of these, but you've heard of these; they're normally uttered with the name Jehovah, which again is an anglicized version of Yahweh. He is the provider, He is our banner, our standard, He is our righteousness, He is the one who is there, and He is the Lord of Hosts or the Lord of Armies – He is. In A.W. Tozer's book The Knowledge of the Holy, he has a very interesting application of this name of God; he says God, in declaring His own self-existence, is declaring that you and I depend on Him for everything. The essence of sin, Tozer says, is to – and I love the expression he uses – he says the essence of our sin is to climb to the throne of our own selfhood and from that exalted position to declare I am. We usurp the place of God, and we say, I will do whatever I want to do, I depend on no one, I depend on nothing, I make my own choices, I am the captain of my destiny, the master of my fate – I did it my way. And God says, no – I am. If you want to love God, you must first acknowledge Him to be the one who has revealed Himself in scripture, as the one who depends on absolutely nothing. He needs nothing from you, and He needs nothing from me. Let that sink into your mind for a moment – everything we enjoy from God is merely an expression of His character, an expression of who He is. He doesn't need anything from us; God hasn't reached out to us in love because somehow, He needs that. He is eternally self-existent without needs from us, and yet He reaches out to us in love because it's His nature, it's His character to love.

Let's move briefly to the New Testament designations – I'm not going to spend much time here because they correspond to these Old Testament ones. The first is Theos, it's a general word, translated God. It's used mostly of God the Father in the New Testament – it simply means God, one of might and power, just as El did in the Old Testament. And we're not going to look at any verses because it's the common name for God the Father in the New Testament, used in a variety of senses.

The next is Kurios. Kurios is translated with Lord in the New Testament. A capital L, followed by lower case letters, it means one with power, authority, and one with whom we have the relationship of a servant – He's our master. And I'm not going to go through this one in detail either, because we did this just two Sundays ago as we looked at the expression there in Philippians 2, where Jesus is called Lord. We looked at Kurios in detail but let me just remind you of the big sweep of what we studied that morning. It is used of the master or owner of a house, it's used of the master of a vineyard, the master of a harvest – it's used of anyone in authority. A son toward his father, Sarah toward Abraham her husband – it's used toward earthly government officials. It's used toward Pilate, it's used toward the Roman Emperor, it's used as a synonym for king, Lord of Lords and King of Kings, we're told. The most common use of this word Kurios was of slave masters, and that's the picture behind this word. When we call Jesus – and, by the way, this word in the New Testament, Kurios, used primarily of Jesus – when it's used of Jesus, we are calling Him master, in the sense that we are slaves. So, when you look at the meaning of this word, you look at how it's used in scripture – when we refer to Jesus as Lord, we're acknowledging His right to rule us. It's saying Jesus, You are my rightful master, You are my Lord. It corresponds to Adonai in the Old Testament – ruler, master, sovereign – You're the one in charge. You get the feeling that God wants us to get the point that He is in charge, that He's God and we're not?

The next word is an interesting one, and it's used primarily in the New Testament – it's the word Pater; its English translation is father. It's used of God about 15 times in the Old Testament, and 245 times in the New Testament. The emphasis in the New Testament is on God as Father; it's used in two senses in the New Testament. It's used, first of all, the relationship between the first and second members of the Trinity – Jesus constantly refers to the first member of the Trinity as His Father. But it's also used of God's relationship to believers, to us, in a number of places in the New Testament. In fact, God tells us to address Him as Father in prayer – you remember Jesus teaching us how to pray? He says, here's how I want you to pray: I want you to address God as Father. I wish I had time, and at some point, I will take a message to focus on God as Father. What an amazing picture.

You know, I think sometimes because we live in a fallen world, we distort that picture because all of us had imperfect fathers. And so, when we hear of God as Father, we tend to read some of the imperfections of our earthly fathers onto God; we conceive of Him wrongly. The way I like to think of it is this way: Think of the most perfect earthly father you can think of – we all have fathers that we've seen as we grew up, and we said, you know, I wish I'd had a father like that. You take that picture, and you multiply it 100 times, and you begin to get a picture of God as our Father. I think we're afraid to think like this, but this is the wording of the New Testament. You get to the epistles of Paul – to Romans, to Galatians – and he stresses the reality that we are adopted sons of God; He's our Father. Do you really think of God as your Father? This is what God intends; this is a revelation of Himself that He wants us to grasp – He wants us to understand Him as Father.

It's interesting – in the New Testament, as a Father, God does two things primarily. I want you to see this – turn to James 1:17. "Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." Here He's described as the Father of the lights of heaven, but the image of Father is used in connection with giving. It's the same image that Christ uses back in His ministry when He says in the gospels that if you have earthly fathers and you go to them and you ask from them those things that you need, they don't respond by giving you something hateful – if you ask for food, they're not going to give you a snake. Even so, your heavenly Father knows how to give good gifts to His children, and He's speaking specifically in that context of the Holy Spirit. Our Father – God, as our Father – knows what we need, and He gives us what we need; He provides for us – provides.

But He does something else, too – turn to 2 John 4. "I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father." Our heavenly Father takes two primary roles with us – one of them is to express His love in providing for us, in giving us what we need of Himself, and of everything we need in life and everything we need for eternity. And the other is to teach us – He gives us commandments, He directs us, He instructs us, and we're also told in Hebrews 12 that, as a Father, He disciplines us, He trains us, the same idea as giving us commandments – He points us in the right direction. Listen – you have a Father in heaven, and your heavenly Father cares about you, and He is taking the role of a provider, one who expresses His love to you in giving you everything you need, and one who expresses His love for you in directing your life, in shooting your life at the right target, and giving you commandments that help you grow up to be what He wants you to be – to be in His image. He's a Father.

Finally, Pantokrator – there's your favorite New Testament word, Pantokrator – from the Greek word all, and to rule. It means, simply, He's the ruler of all; it's translated Almighty in the New Testament. Its meaning is simply that He is absolute ruler of everything. Now, these names, as we've looked at tonight, summarize the primary names of God that are used in the Old and New Testaments. Do you see the big picture? There's the care and tender care of a father, but beyond that, the big picture of all of these we've looked at is that God is in charge, that He's God, that He's great, that He's not to be trifled with, that He's the highest one, the mightiest one, the most exalted one, the ruler of everything.

How do you and I respond to these truths about God? I'm not going to spend time on each one of these, but I want to mention a couple of them – there are a lot of passages that talk about singing praise to His name, those things that are true about His character that are incorporated in His names. But notice Psalm 9:10: "Those who know Your name" – that is, who know what's true about You that's revealed in Your word about Your person – "Those who know Your name will put their trust in You, for You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You." This is one of my favorite verses; I often come back to it in my own mind as I think about the fact that, as we go through life and we encounter trouble, if you really know the name of God – in other words, if you understand the character of God, that He's in charge, that He's our Father, that He loves us, that He's only doing what's best for us – then you can't help but trust Him. If you struggle trusting God, it's because you don't really know His name, you don't really know what's true about God, because He's never forsaken those who seek Him – I love that. You know, Satan wants to take us just when we're seeking God and make us feel like the heavens are brass, and God has deserted us. But the psalmist says God has never forsaken those who seek Him – you can trust Him. If you know His name, if you know what's true about Him, you can trust Him, you can boast in Him. Psalm 20:7 says "Some boast in chariots, and some in horses, but we will boast in the name" or the character "of Yahweh, our Elohim." Psalm 34:3: "O magnify Yahweh with me and let us exalt His name together." "I will praise the name of God with songs," Psalm 69:30. Psalm 148:13: "Let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted, His glory is above earth and heaven." But I want you to see, in closing, Proverbs 18:10 – I love this reference as well. "The name of the Lord" – that is, what is true about God that's revealed in His names – "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe." You and I can find refuge, in the midst of life's deepest, darkest trouble, in the character of our God, in the fact that He is our Father, the fact that He is Adonai, Kurios, He's our master, He's in charge, He's in sovereign control of the universe – nothing happens to us outside of His control. We can trust Him, and we can run into His name, as it were, as if it were a tower, and find safety in the midst of life's deepest, darkest troubles, because of who He is. Let's pray together.

Father, thank You. Thank You for what You have revealed about Yourself. Forgive us for doubting You – Lord, forgive us for ever questioning Your power in our lives, forgive us for ever allowing our circumstances to drive us, to doubt You, to speak evil of You, to question Your wisdom, to question Your goodness, to question Your sovereign power. Thank You that not only are You sovereign, not only are You the mighty one, the mightiest one, but You're also our Father. Lord, thank You for the wonderful mix of what You have revealed about Yourself to us in Your names, thank You that You are the eternally consistent one. You are the one who is, and who always will be what You always have been. Lord, we live in a changing world, we live in a tumultuous world – we find great comfort in the fact that, even if the mountains should be shaken into the middle of the sea, You are God, and You change not. Lord, help us who know You to know Your name and to put our trust in You.

We pray in Jesus' name – Amen.