The Names of God, Lesson 1
The Name of God,
Text: Exodus 34:5-8 “And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. 8 And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. ”
Intro: For the next few weeks we are going to explore some of the names that have been ascribed to God. Some of the names we will be looking at are:
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El Elyon -El Shaddai -Jehovah Jireh -Jehovah Rophi
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Jehovah Makkeh -Jehovah Nissi -Jehovah Shalom -Jehovah Rohi
to name a few.
However these names have something in common, They are all combinations of God’s name with another title which describes what God means to the person. So before we look at these, I want to look at the proper name of God as given by “HIM”.
Remember, when God spoke to Moses and “Proclaimed” to Moses who He was, It is God describing Himself, not man’s description.
YAHOVAH (YHVH) (
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The Construction of the Name,
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The Most Popular Name of God,
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The Name God Uses,
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On the outline, you might have notices the three version of the name,
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The first one is the normal pronunciation of the name, often pronounced to have the J sound, Jehovah.
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The second one “YHVH” is the literal name given, the Hebrew did not have vowels during the original writing. But as you can imagine, to pronounce this with out vowels is difficult. But even in the original, the words would have been pronounces with vowel sounds, but it would have been passed down orally,
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and each generation would have been taught how to pronounce the name, or the word.
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We have similar things today:
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A Homograph is a word that is written the same, but is pronounced different in different context:
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for instance, L-E-A-D, He was born to _________. or, that metal is made of_
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what about, W-I-N-D, the ____ blows hard, or, Don’t ___ the clock too tight,
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one last one B-A-S-S, it’s all about the ____, or I fish for ____.
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How do we know when to as A or Ah,? Context.
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So the Hebrew people adopted a system of adding vowel markers to their words for pronouncing,
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The Hebrew is (from left to right ) Yod, Hey, Vav Hey, the little dots under the Hebrew are vowel markers that aid in the pronouncing, and it gets difficult.
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But, the name YHVH is the name that is used most often in the bible,
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over 6,800 times. In our text, and it has it’s root in the same name given in…
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Exodus 3:14 “and God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM, and he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent you”
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The Meaning of the Name, (When we break it down to the basics)
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The Eternal,
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The very name of God, literally means eternally,
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Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”
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What is “Eternity”
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We can represent is the sideways 8,
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∞
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infinity,
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never having a beginning neither having an ending,
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I will often speak about the difference between eternity, everlasting, and temporary,
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eternity means it was before time, and will continue after time.
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One of the problems with the big bang is, where does it all come from,
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all mass located a a central point then it explodes? Perhaps an alien life created the big bang, where did they come from?
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With God it is simply established, He has always been,
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as hard as it is to try to understand never having an ending, it is even more difficult to think the other direction, never a beginning, but this is Who God is,
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What this means to us, and how it ties to us,
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on the front side, eternity past, we have our beginnings, our purpose, knowing God is there for everything we have been through, and are going through,
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on the back side, to Know God will always be there, and Has a plan for our life, and He will be there to complete it.
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God being eternal gives us the reason for our life, and the promise that He will always be with us.
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But, not only does it have the meaning that He is eternal, He is also…
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The Unchangeable,
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Malachi 3:6 “For I am the LORD, I change not;…”
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Jesus is the same, Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever,
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We tend to divide the bible into different dispensations,
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the most common is, New and Old Testament, but we also divide it up into, the Garden, before the flood, after, before the law after, the 1000 year reign,
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and theses are clear delineations of the bible, but they do not change the character of God,
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before the law, God still hated sin, but the law gave us knowledge of what sin is,
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Romans 5, Paul points that death ( a result of sin) came even before the law, so God still appointed death as a payment of sin,
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but then he goes on in,
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Romans 7:7 “…I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”
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does this mean that before the law, no one ever coveted? No, it means the law pointed it out.
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God’s standards have not shifted through the years, and He has not changed.
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What was sin, is still sin,
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This will raise many debates tho, if we say what was is, still sin, then what about the dress code, or the Sabbath, or even the stoning of people? Should we still be practicing them?
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We at this time need to take into consider the difference between the points of Righteousness, and the illustrations of the coming Messiah,
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Remember the words of Paul:
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Galatians 3:24 “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”
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the old Testament was full of Prophecies concerning the coming of Jesus,
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the purpose of them was to point the Nation of Israel to Him when He did come.
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But they neglected them, and made a religion around the strict practice of the law, instead of letting it teach them what they needed.
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So, even tho, God doesn’t change who He is, He does change how He deals with people,
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With Adam and Eve it was in a form that they walked with,
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With Noah, He told Him to build an ark,
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He spoke with Abraham as a friend, and to Moses from the burning bush.
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To Israel through the Law and Temple practice, Today through the bible and the Holy Ghost. And in the future from a throne in Israel.
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Just because God deals with us different, doesn’t mean He has changed,
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Let me add this last thing, If we have two children, we may have the same standards with them, but do we treat them exactly the same? One may respond to a lecture, where the other may need a more “hands on” approach.
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Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it,”
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notice the proper pronouns, it is speaking of individual children, not cookie cutter kids.
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Do God is Eternal, Unchangeable, and also…
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The Self Existent,
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That is, He has no need of another to help Him exist,
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Everything else in existence was made,
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John 1:3 “all things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.”
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Colossians goes so far as to say everything is held together because of Him.
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But, God was not created,
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and the three persons of the Godhead were not created, they all are eternal,
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We know Jesus by name when He was born in Bethlehem, but He existed as part of the Godhead in the beginning,
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We know the person of the Holy Spirit because of the day of Pentecost, but He existed from the beginning,
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Back to where it all began, we read, In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the earth,
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Re’shiyth ‘elohiym eth, shamayim, eth, ‘erets
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‘elohiym is written in the Hebrew plural form,
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it refers to more than 1, there is a difference between it and the dual form.
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But, it points to the fact, the Godhead of 3 was already in existence.
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So God is eternal, unchanging, and self existing,
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