The Name of Jesus and the Name of God

Introduction

The name of God and the name of Jesus are profoundly important subjects in the Bible. Both subjects are mysteries, which we must approach with humility and prayer for understanding. Some of what I write may not be easy to grasp, and will require the enlightening of the Holy Spirit.

The purpose of a name in our western culture is simply to identify. We use names to distinguish one person from another. Otherwise we would never know whom we were talking about. Most people choose names for their children because they like the sound of them. At the subconscious level this is probably because they have known or admired real or fictitious people with those names.

The names John, Michael, Mary, Anne etc do not describe their bearers in any way. They are simply used to distinguish one person from another. Few people know the meanings of English names as most of them are not English words - apart from a few like Grace, Joy, Victor, Ernest etc.

In the culture of the Bible, names were chosen for their meanings. Names were simply Hebrew words or phrases that anyone could understand. These names sometimes described the experiences of the parents. Moses named his son Gershom - a stranger here. He was an exile in the wilderness at the time. Joseph means adding.

This was his mother Rachel's prayer that God would give her more sons. Benjamin means son of the right hand. Other names were prophetic. Hosea named a son Lo-ammi meaning not my people; Isaiah named his son Maher-Shalal-Hash-Bazmeaning Swift is the booty, speedy is the prey. Jesus received his name because he was to save his people from their sins.

In the spirit realm, names directly describe their bearers. We read of demons in the New Testament called Legion, because they were many. There are angels in the book of Revelation called Death and Apollyon, which is Greek for Destroyer. The name Satan means Adversary or Opponent. Many people who have experience in deliverance and exorcism find that demons will actually give their names when challenged. They give names like Greed or Lust etc, which are descriptions of their characters.

Names then in the Bible have the two purposes of describing and identifying. Beyond this cultural difference between our modern use of names and that of the Bible, there is a further problem. God's thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways our ways, as Isaiah said.

But his ways and his thoughts are higher than ours. Or so it is at least to the measure that our minds have not been renewed. The more we possess the mind of Christ, the less Isaiah's pessimistic assessment will be true of us. We must learn to think in divine rather than human terms, if we hope ever to understand the deeper things of God. The carnal mind is enmity with God.

The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. We must have the illumination of the Holy Spirit if we ever hope to understand the mind of God. The meanings we see in words may be no more than shadows of deeper and more expanded meanings that God has for them.

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