God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name – Philippians 2:9–11
Throughout history, God has sought to build strong relationships with His people…long before He sent His Son to earth, God began revealing Himself to mankind in other ways…one of the first was sharing His personal name.
According to the Torah, God’s name is a four-letter word – Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey(YHWH) is the name of God in the Jewish Scriptures.
When Moses ask God, who shall I say sent me when told to go back to Egypt and seek the release of the people, God’s response was tell them the I AM אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה (YHWH)sent you.
People often pronounce these four Hebrew letters as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” but the truth is that we don’t really know how to pronounce it.
We have lost the correct pronunciation of God’s name…because the Jews were so worried about taking God’s name in vain, they quit speaking it…only the priests were allowed to speak God’s name but when the priesthood collapsed in 70 A.D. with the destruction of the Temple there was no one left to accurately pronounce it.
Even today the name ‘God’ is not written by most Jewish writers because of the danger of violating the fourth commandment so it’s written G-d…also there is the danger in writing God’s name down to avoid it ever being thrown away, erased or destroyed.
This led them to begin substituting other names in Scripture and in spoken prayer…most Bibles translate God’s name as ‘LORD’…when reading it in Hebrew, it’s pronounced ‘Adonai’.
The name in Hebrew indicates ownership…from this, we see God’s outright ownership of all things in Heaven and Earth, including Mankind.
The idea is not of slavery…we need to remember that the concept of Adonai has to do with God’s position of leadership…not oppression…it’s referring to our submitting to Him…showing God has sovereignty over us.
What Paul is referring to in his epistle to the church at Philippi is…as the result of Jesus’ willful submission to death:
at the mention of His name every knee will bow…of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father (Phil. 2:9b-11)
Here’s what’s crazy about this…Jesus has been raised from the dead and is ascended to the right hand of God…a statemen of fact…and yet millions of people bet their eternal destiny against an outcome that God has declared to be absolutely certain.
What the text is saying is that God has highly exalted Jesus to such a degree that at the name of Jesus…when you hear the name Jesus… every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that He is Lord to the glory of God.
OK…a little confusion…the name spelled Jesus is common in some parts of the world…although it’s not pronounced as Jesus…it is written as Jesus…so how does that apply when someone calls a person by their given name of Jesus.
Jesus’ name in Hebrew is ‘Yeshua’… meaning “the Lord is salvation” … which translates into English as Joshua…so then how did we get the name Jesus?
In the late 4th century, the Bible was translated into Latin…a manuscript known as the Vulgate…in the various translations that appeared, the English Bible eventually changed the Y sound to the letter J, which we now have in Jesus.
So, from Yeshua – Jesus’ name in Hebrew to the Greek transliteration that was later transliterated again into Latin then later becoming the English name Jesus.
The name both Mary and Joseph were told to give to the baby before Jesus was even born [Luke 1:31; Matthew 1:21].
Paul is saying…that we must acknowledge by whatever name or names the Persons of the Trinity call themselves…and there are over 200…that these names are immeasurably and infinitely glorious.
And because those names are an indication of the character and attributes of God…and because they reflect His character…God is at pains both to protect the integrity of His name and promote His honor…as reflected in the first four commandments of the Ten Commandments.
Here’s the importance in knowing what some of the many names God has given Himself means.
One of those names is the name Elohim…the first words in Genesis 1 in the Bible are: בראשית ברא אלוהים – In the beginning, God created…the word used for God is ‘Elohim.’
An interesting word…Elohim is a masculine plural noun…right up front we see that God is not a woman or a mother.
Something else strange about this word…it’s a plural noun but it is always used with a singular verb when it speaks of the true God…it defines God as being more than one person which validates the decision to create humanity was made by more than one person:
Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”
The second word is Adonai whose syntactic usage is normally interpreted as plural as well.
There they all are – all three of them together…God the (Father)…the Son who was with God from the beginning…and His Holy Spirit.
Now this is where the controversy starts…there are those who argue that the name Elohim does not indicate more than one person…I’m not even going to address those who argue otherwise because they use evidence from sources that are not even Christian in their attempt to discredit the Trinity…so obviously their argument is invalid.
God invites us through Scripture to see how His name declares who He is…in researching the names of God we see how He not only reveals His character, but also His promises to us by what He calls Himself.
It is possible to know God through His name…but because God is way beyond our human concept…one way to know what God is really like is to know what He reveals about Himself.
That is where the Bible comes in…the Bible reveals God and His ways.
Just thinking out loud…have you wondered how to get something—anything— from the Bible? …it seems so complicated and so big…so to know the true God seems like an impossibility.
BUT…by researching and understanding His name you’ll have greater insight into who He really is.
Here’s what’s important to know regarding what a name meant in biblical times… something entirely different from what it does to us today.
In our culture a name rarely reflects the hopes we have for a child’s future or its character…even if we name a child ‘Hope’ or ‘Destiny’ it’s usually not a reflection of ethnicity, culture, or parental preference.
The only exception to that may be for those of you who remember Scott and Melissa Murphy…after two sons they finally had a daughter…Melissa named her ‘Praise.’
A name in the Bible is rich with purpose and meaning…the giving of a name or the changing of a name suggested a positive or successful future…a new phase of life…a new destiny…or a new relationship for that person.
For example, God changed Abram’s name… meaning ‘exalted father’ in Hebrew to his new name, Abraham, meaning ‘father of a multitude’ because he was the founding father of the Jewish nation of Israel…the name Abraham represented what God would perform through him as the father of Israel.
God gave Jacob a new name when he was a middle-aged man [Gen.32:27-28] …symbolizing his new nature…his name change reflected his new inner character from the (“deceiver”) Jacob…to Israel (one who interacts with God).
Here’s what’s interesting…God reveals His names in specific situations…in the Old Testament when someone had a specific need, the name that God would reveal Himself as was related directly to the solution to the problem that the person was facing.
Example…Abraham/Sarah expels Hagar…the Egyptian maidservant from the camp…she’s on her way back to Egypt…in the wilderness with no food and no water…God appears to her.
Hagar marvels that God even knows who she is let alone knows about her and cares about her at all…in her joy she becomes the only character in the Bible to actually name God…El Roi, the God Who Sees.
It is one thing to know in theory that God knows you and loves you…but it’s an entirely different thing to be aware of God’s presence and personal care over you…that He knows us and loves us — that he sees me, not with judgment, but with love and care…that is the meaning of one of the names of God.
Now if you’re interested in doing a study…you can look at the over 200 names of God in the Bible…He has so many names because no one name tells you everything there is to know about His character…each name puts the spotlight on one of His attributes.
The more you know about His names, the more you will understand His complex character.
In fact even the writers of both testaments stress the importance of God’s name by using the phrase…‘for His name’s sake’ [1 John 2:12 / Psalm 106:8 / Psalm 23:3 / Isaiah 43:25 / Isaiah 48:9 / Isaiah 66:5 / Jeremiah 14:7].
What does that phrase mean, for His name’s sake? Clearly the phrase means ‘for the sake of showing His abilities and His character’.
God made for Himself a great and glorious name in redeeming Israel when He poured His plagues out on Egypt then drowned the Egyptian army in knee deep water as some insist.
God made for Himself a great name when He brought His people through the wilderness and led them into the Promised Land…You lead Your people, to make Yourself a glorious name [14].
God gets a name for himself in turning those who have been rebellious of Him into believing Christians…those who for years have been in opposition to God and finally come to an acceptance of Jesus as Savior glorifies God.
God has made a name for Himself by taking millions of departed saints into Paradise with Him.
God gets a name for himself in forgiving the guilty…removing our sin as far as East is from the West remembering them no more…who casts all our sins into the depths of the sea.
God glorifies his name in preserving the tempted…every person here today has a story about themselves…how God has kept them during a time of great temptation.
God gets a great name for himself in using weak instruments…people who may not be the best…the most eloquent…the smartest…including the feeble or the insignificant…but are willing to be used by God for His glory…ever thought about what mighty works God can do with such poor instruments?
God’s great aim in creating and governing the world is that He be glorified. “I created you for my glory. I formed you, I made you.”
Now when God says that He created us for his glory, it cannot mean that he created us so that He would become more glorious…because God’s glory is the perfect harmony of all his attributes into one personal Being.
Even though this text deals with God’s Old Testament people Israel…His motives do not change from era to era and so we can apply at least that aspect of this text to the people of God in our day.
When God says He made us for His glory, it means that He created us to display that glory.
As Christians our desire should be to glorify the name of God by the way we live…that His glory might be known and praised through… our actions…our motives…our desires…that our interests align with God’s purpose for us.
That’s why one of the many attributes of God is jealousy…but different than human jealousy…human jealousy is nearly always rooted in sin…but in God’s case He has a right to desire our praise…our worship…our attention…and our hearts.
It is right for God to be a jealous God in the sense that He wants you to remain faithful in putting Him before everything else…God hates arrogance. He hates it because we haven’t done anything to be arrogant about.
For those who follow Jesus as Lord and Savior two things need to be stressed:
First, our salvation is for God’s sake…For My name’s sake I withhold my anger for the sake of My praise I restrain it for you [Isa. 48:9].
To be sure, God will save his people, He will bless us infinitely! …but it is for His name’s sake…for Hispraise…for Hisglory that He does it.
The second thing that needs to be stressed is God will not allow his name to be profaned indefinitely.
Though He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, He will not tolerate forever those who do not give him glory…or regard something else as more glorious or more worthy of allegiance.
“My glory I will not give to another.” [Isa. 48:11] …That’s why it’s a fearful thing to be cross ways with your maker.
There is a judgment day coming…and the issue for every one of us will be… have we been with God in His efforts to glorify Himself so that every people…nation…and language have the opportunity to know Him and the gift He offers to be a part of His kingdom that will never pass away…or has His glory been a matter of indifference to us?