By John Fulton 

What is the significance of a name? Why do parents so often agonize over the name they plan to give their child? When we meet someone, why do we feel the need to learn their name and give them ours? What is the significance of Dr. X telling someone, “Just call me Jim?” How does a relationship change when one is thought of as Mary instead of Boss? How does the relationship between two people change when they know each other and refer to each other by name (Mary to Jim) instead of by function (Boss to Employee)?

For a long time now when I read my Bible and I find myself in the Old Testament, I have trained my brain when it sees LORD in all capitals to read instead, Yahweh, for that is what one finds when one looks at the original Hebrew, the tetragram YHWH [Y(a)HW(e)H]. Recently, as I was reading through Ezekiel, although one can find this in a million other places, I came across the phase, “Lord GOD.” I looked it up in the Hebrew to remind myself what the Hebrew word for Lord was, and what struck me was that the word translated as GOD was the same word behind LORD. It was Yahweh. The Hebrew I was looking at did not say Lord GOD, but Adonai Yahweh. Adonai has the sense of supreme Lord, think an Emperor who rules over Kings.

All throughout the Old Testament, it doesn’t say LORD, or LORD of hosts, or Lord GOD, but instead says Yahweh, Yahweh of Hosts, Lord Yahweh. His name is all over the Old Testament, not a bunch of titles or references to the kind of being He is, but His name, His actual name.

So, why does this matter? Who cares?

Let me start with examples from my everyday life. I have a friend I’ve known for going on two decades. He was married roughly a decade ago. I’ve met his wife on numerous occasions, but I, to this day, can’t recall her name. Whenever he and I are together, he refers to her only by her role in his life, never by her name. “I need to text my wife,” or “My wife thinks,” or … he’ll say. But he never uses her name. I have colleagues at work who do the same and even though we’ve worked together for a very long time, I couldn’t tell you their spouse’s name. 

Meanwhile, I virtually never refer to Jenny by her role as my wife. From time to time, sure, but only rarely when it makes sense and generally only in the introductory sense of, “My wife Jenny” to establish the relationship of Jenny to myself. I know others who do the same and I know their spouse or significant other by their first name. I mention Jenny, they mention William. The role and function they have in our lives is unspoken and secondary. The person is primary.

But why does this matter?

It matters because when you refer to someone by their name, the connection and relationship is personal and relational, not functional. Jenny is a specific person; she’s humanized by the use of her name, and one thinks of her as a particular person and individual. When she is referred to as “my wife,” she stops being a person and takes on a function and role, becomes lumped into the mental category and bucket known as “Wife” where all wives reside. She loses her individuality and uniqueness, is dehumanized and takes on all the associations the hearer may have for that role or function. Or think of this example: if someone, particularly a man, speaks of their mother-in-law, is the default connection positive? Doubtful! Indeed, if the relationship is positive, the person may likely feel the need to explain that fact and even then the hearer may doubt the veracity of the comment.

The point being, using someone’s individual name connects you into a personal relationship with that individual. It forms a direct connection to a specific person with wants and desires, likes and dislikes, a history full of moments both beautiful and traumatic. Whereas using a title doesn’t connect one to an individual person, but to a category that evokes expectations of action, degree of prestige, ability to associate with, sense of superiority or inferiority, and the like. Telling a friend you met a guy named Bob invokes a very different connection than telling them you ran into an unnamed Doctor or a Politician or a Farmer.   

More extreme examples of the psychological difference in knowing a name versus a category are found in history. Both in the Nazi internment camps for the Jews and the Mao regime in China, prisoners were given numerical designations and referred to by their number or designation, never by their name. Although only two examples, history has many others where people were given designations by which they were referred to rather than their names in order to dehumanize them. We do this all the time even now. Thinking of someone as a liberal, a Christian, a democrat, a republican, a conservative, etc., lumps them into a faceless, nameless category to which all kinds of things can be said, done, and thought.

This practice has the intended psychological effect on both overlords and guards as well as prisoners, or on the “in crowd,” and the “out crowd.” Those referred to by designations stop being individuals. They stop being human. They simply become meaningless numbers and labels that enable all kinds of atrocities to be executed that normally would have never happened or been much harder to do. Starving Ann Frank to death is a lot harder than starving prisoner XYZ123.

The same significance applies to what has been done to Yahweh by the various translations of the Old Testament. God isn’t just God, He’s personified Himself with a specific name, Yahweh, to clearly distinguish Himself from Odin, Zeus, Baal, and Anubis. But you wouldn’t know that either by our use of language or by our translations. His name that is riddled throughout the Bible has been erased and instead replaced with a title (LORD and often Lord as well) and a type of being (GOD). Yahweh, who went to great lengths to personify Himself and create that deep personal connection that comes from knowing someone’s name has had His name erased by tradition and translators. And the more one looks at the original Hebrew, the more the number of words used to replace His name grows.

Referring to Yahweh as Lord and God, which He is as surely as Jenny is my wife, enables Yahweh to be kept at a distance. It allows Him to be reduced to a set of conceptual ideas that surround a lord and surround a god and to therefore be defined in a manner that suites the person interacting with the concept. “Yahweh said to Moses,” takes on the tenor of two friends, family members, acquaintances, …, having a discussion with each other while, “The LORD said to Moses,” becomes the actions of a ruler seeking to command His minion who can expect a terrifying result if he fails. Similarly, Yahweh, when He is talking to the Israelites, isn’t saying to them, “I am The LORD your God,” but “I am Yahweh, your God.” He’s not presenting Himself as the ruler of the people issuing an order, but as their personal supreme spiritual being, watching over them and desiring to be in relationship with His people.

And that has been Yahweh’s goal with creation from the beginning of time. Whether with Adam in the garden, or with the Israelites on Mount Sinai, or with each of us today, Yahweh has been seeking out a personal relationship with the pinnacle of His creation, mankind. He presents Himself to us as Yahweh. Now, is Yahweh both Lord of lords and God of gods? Yes! And one shouldn’t forget that. But that has been emphasized to the extreme and turned Yahweh into this wrathful, vengeful being looking to squash everyone because they have failed to live up to His perfection. What is lost is the personal and caring nature with which He has presented Himself to creation and His desire to walk with that creation, nurture it, guide it, treat it with compassion, and be love to it.

So why take the clear meaning of the Hebrew words and Scripture and translate away and erase His name from Scripture? YHWH is Yahweh, it’s not LORD, or Lord, or GOD, or God, or various other words it gets translated into. Why erase His name from the Old Testament and de-personify Him and reduce Him to nebulous concepts that can be crafted as the need fits?

Well, the need is as old as time and a sin of mankind that goes back to the beginning of existence – the desire to keep Yahweh at a distance and live one’s life the way one wants to. When I interact as a husband to a wife, as long as I do my self-prescribed husband duties I can ignore the desires of my wife and live my life as I want. I’ve interacted with that category as I deem appropriate, as is deserving of the category. But when I interact as John to Jenny, then I look to know and understand her, the individual, who she is, what she wants, and if I’m wanting to improve the relationship, I’m always trying to know her better.

I’ve talked about the following example in “The God Who Didn’t Need to Die, but Did Anyway,” but will expound upon it more here and wrap it into the present discussion as a bridge to what follows. A greater context to the passage (Deuteronomy 5) and what leads up to it is found in the other article, but to set the stage, Yahweh has descended from Mount Sinai, presented Himself before every last one of the Hebrews, and told them the Ten Commandments.

And then the people say this to Moses:

“Behold, the Lord (Yahweh) our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives. Now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord (Yahweh) our God any longer, then we will die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? Go near and hear all that the Lord (Yahweh) our God says; then speak to us all that the Lord (Yahweh) our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it. The Lord (Yahweh) heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord (Yahweh) said to me, ‘I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have spoken. ‘Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!” (Deuteronomy 5:24-29, NASB95, Yahweh added)

Think about what the people have done. Yahweh descended and talked directly with them.  He had a very personal interaction with them and did so presenting Himself as and through His name, Yahweh, not as and through His rank “The Lord.” His personal name was before them, not a title of rulership and authority. He laid out expectations of the relationship, as we do all the time with our friends, family, and others. And their response was to reject that direct relationship, set up Moses as an intermediary, establish an excuse (that their own words immediately contradict) for why He needed to be kept at a distance, and then go back to living their lives as they desire. “Moses,” they say, “you go talk to Him and tell us how to appease Him and get the goodies of manna, quail, water, promised land, etc. but otherwise tell Him to leave us alone. You interact with Him.”

The human equivalent to what happened here is similar to a person wanting to have a friendship with another and laying down some requirements for that relationship such as, “Don’t have any other wives besides me.” “Don’t steal my possessions and treat them as your own.” “Don’t expect a cogent response before 10 a.m. in the morning.” And other such requirements. Imagine if our response to the one who set these expectations, or their response to us, was, “I can’t abide your requirements, but I want access to your stuff, so, since you like Joe, I’ll send Joe to talk with you when I need to interact and get in touch with you.”

Now the human response would often be, “Well forget you. I’ll go find other friends or divorce you and marry another. I don’t want to have Joe serve as our middleman if you can’t honor these basic requirements.” But this is not Yahweh’s response. His response to their rejection of relationship and demand to work through an intermediary is, “They have done well in what they have spoken.” For as I describe in “The God Who Didn’t Need to Die but Did Anyway,” they left open a door and a means for Yahweh to keep pursuing them, to keep working to establish the direct relationship He really wanted.

And Yahweh would keep working to establish that relationship. He sent Judges, He sent Prophets, and eventually; understanding how difficult it is for us who are flesh to see, understand, and interact with a spiritual being that has no fleshly form; He sent His son Jesus to be a physical and perfect exemplar and equivalent to Himself.  As Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” (John 10:30, NASB95) and “Jesus cried out and said, ‘He who believes in me, does not believe in me but in him who sent me. He who sees me, sees the one who sent me’” (John 12:44, NASB95).

Yahweh sent Jesus to establish the personal relationship with humanity that He’d tried to establish on Sinai and throughout the Old Testament. He sent Jesus to be Himself in the flesh, One whom, when we see Him (Jesus) we really see Him (Yahweh). Stripped of His relational name, Yahweh, by titles such as Lord and God, ostracized away from His people by rules and a ruling class more fixated on their own status and power, He sent His son to restore the personal connection of a name, this time as Jesus.

Jesus came so we could see Yahweh and know who He is and have relationship with Yahweh. Jesus came to be an exact representation of the Father, of Yahweh, so we might enter into a personal relationship with Yahweh. This is not to say that Jesus did not want us to have a personal relationship with Himself, but His goal was to point us to Yahweh and relationship with Him.  As Jesus said in His prayer to God shortly before His crucifixion, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:1b-3, NASB95, bold added). In this passage, Jesus tells us that eternal life is to know the Father, to know Yahweh, to have an individual, personal connection to Yahweh, as well as to Jesus.

Jesus came so that we might know the Father, know Yahweh. He came to do what Yahweh had meant to start on Sinai – walking with His people, showing them who He is. So how did Jesus show us the Father and teach us how to walk in relationship with Yahweh? First, whenever He speaks in the Bible, we should hear the Father speaking, for Jesus tells us, “For I did not speak on my own initiative, but the Father himself who sent me has given me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak” (John 12:49, NASB95). Second, when Jesus acts in the Bible, we should see Yahweh acting, “Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, ‘Truly, Truly, I say to you the son can do nothing of himself, unless it is something he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the son also does in like manner’” (John 5:19, NASB95). Furthermore, Jesus focused on the will of Yahweh, to see it carried out; He kept the commandment of Yahweh and abided in His love. As scripture says, “Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work’” (John 4:34, NASB95) and “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you” (John 15:9–12, NASB95).

As Jesus establishes, Yahweh and Himself are one in their character, thoughts, desires, and behaviors; one in objective and goals. Jesus came to be God personified and through His example point us to the Father to have relationship with Him. Jesus established this equivalence through having similar miracles performed through Him that His Father performed through Moses. Water became wine with Jesus (John 2), whereas bitter water became drinkable with Moses (Exodus 15). Loaves and fish multiplied with Jesus (Matthew 14), whereas manna and quail came from the sky with Moses (Exodus 16). Jesus established that He was sent by God and for the same purpose that Moses was sent: to lead the people out of isolation in the desert of separation from Yahweh and under the lordship of other gods to the point of direct relationship with Him on Sinai.

But what was done to and with Moses, the church has done to and with Jesus. It has declared the Father vengeful and unapproachable. It has declared that we cannot come into Yahweh’s presence because of our sinfulness (“we will surely die!”). It has told Yahweh, “What you ask us to do is too onerous, we want to live the way we want to live.” And just as they gave lip service to Moses that they would do what Yahweh would say to Moses they should do, so we give lip service to Yahweh again and tell Him that we have professed Jesus as Lord and are covered by the blood. As surely as the Israelites rejected the direct personal relationship with Yahweh offered on Sinai with the help of His servant Moses, so we have rejected direct personal relationship with Yahweh offered through the life of His Son Jesus. To be clear, in what was just said, the term “they” does not mean every last Israelite, nor does “we” indicate every last Christian or present-day person; but it does mean many of them, whether Israelite, Christian, or others.

So why have so many done this? Why reject a direct personal relationship with Yahweh?

Scripture establishes the direct equivalency between Sinai and the cross, between the rejection of Yahweh on Sinai, and the rejection of Yahweh as personified through His Son. As it says:

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God” (John 3:14–21, NASB95, bold added).

The Light came into the world in a mix of cloud and fire on Sinai and offered for mankind to approach and learn and do deeds of light and practice truth. The Light came into the world again in the form of Yahweh’s Son for the same purpose. But so many men enjoy and rejoice in darkness. So, they rejected Yahweh’s offer on Sinai, and they rejected the same offer of relationship given through the Son. Yet, those same men want God’s favor and goodies, so they first asked Him for a list of commands to carry out to buy His favor, and now they claim His Son is their Lord while living lives of darkness and rejecting that direct relationship which by necessity will demand change. The fate for both groups is the same. They are judged already and face the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mathew 22). 

As I said before, the above is not all men, for some are fools and rejected this offer, and others are the righteous generation. In “Can Man Be Righteous Before God,” and “Are You Really Just a Sinner,” these two groups of people are explored in more detail. On Sinai, not all rejected Yahweh’s offer. Joshua, Caleb, and others sought Him out and desired the relationship. And as Jesus is clear to highlight in many passages, many others, including the disciples, accepted the relationship with the Father through the Son.  Not all men are evil, not all love the darkness. But as Jesus clearly states, many will say, “Lord, Lord,” to whom He will say, “I never knew you” (Mathew 7).

Jesus speaks to all of this when He says:

“But the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish—the very works that I do—testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me. And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (John 5:36-49, NASB95).

The Hebrews rejected what Yahweh said through Moses on Sinai. They rejected the relationship and sought out glory in many ways, including in their degree of adherence to the Law, but they did not seek out glory through relationship with Yahweh. They were unwilling to come to Yahweh but sought out glory among themselves and believed in the name of false prophets and in the name of Rabbi’s and religious leaders. Modern Christians do the same. They seek glory from each other, through the status of their pastor; they do not believe the one He sent, that they can be good, that they can come into a direct relationship with the Father, nor do they seek to. As Solomon says, “Behold, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices” (Ecclesiastes 7:29, NASB95, bold added).

But as the author of Hebrews says, and as I concur, for the reader who has gotten this far, “But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way” (Hebrews 6:9, NASB95). And indeed, God has better things in mind concerning you as well. His intention is for us to become like Jesus in purpose, not after death, but in this life. We are to pick up the mantle of Jesus’ mission and be a living example of the Father in this life and help people come to the point of relationship with Him. We are to speak what the Father would speak, do as the Father wills, love as the Father loves. As Jesus says, “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me” (Luke 10:16, NASB95). And “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me” (John 13:20, NASB95); and “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father” (John 14:12, NASB95).

In all that has been said, a glorious and amazing truth is seen. Yahweh, the Lord and God of the entire cosmos, the creator of all things, wants to be in relationship with all of us. He doesn’t want to have a relationship via a proxy such as Moses, nor is He some distant, wrathful God who is disgusted by you and needs His Son’s blood coating you to prevent Him from destroying you. He wants a relationship with you. 

His name is Yahweh, and you can call Him by that name. Part of His good news (gospel) is that you can have relationship with Him, call Him by His name as you would a friend. In so doing, we should never forget who He is. He is creator of the universe. He is the supreme God. He is the one who gave us life. He does expect us to pursue righteous living. But He is also Yahweh, and He sees us and knows us and wants to be with us, not punish and destroy us. He wants to help us grow and become more. He wants us to draw near to Him and learn more about Him and become closer to Him as we would anyone we care about and want to care about us. And as we do with the Father so we should do with the Son.

Maybe the even more amazing news is you are to be to those around you as Jesus was to mankind. You are to be Yahweh to them, at least as close as you’re able, so that in seeing you and how you conduct your life, they can see the Father and have relationship with Him through relationship with you. As Paul says, “Be imitators of me just as I am also of Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:11, NASB95). And as God says to Moses, “Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him” (Exodus 4:16, NASB95, bold added). And as Jesus says, “A pupil is not above his teacher, but everyone after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40, NASB95, bold added).

Now Paul could just as easily have said, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ as Christ Imitates Yahweh,” as the Scriptures that have been laid out here clearly show. And God, in all essence, said to Moses, “I will speak to you, and what I speak to you, you will speak to Aaron, and by so doing, you will be Me to him.” And Jesus essentially said, “You can be me to those whom you interact with.” Not Him in the fullest exactness of sense, but in all practical purpose you are meant to be “as Jesus”, “as God,” to those whom you meet so they can see what it means to have relationship with Jesus, with Yahweh, with the Father, with God. And as“ Can Man Be Righteous Before God,” and “Are You Really Just a Sinner,” highlight, you can do this.

So, rejoice in the good news of relationship, grow closer to God every day of your life, speak His words as He shows you to speak them, do the works He directs you to do, love as He loves when you speak and do. You’re not awful, or a sinner, or evil if you seek out relationship with Yahweh, and seek it you can. You have a glorious calling, to be His very presence in this world, to be “as Him” to those you meet, and to help those who desire to know the glory of direct relationship with the creator of all things who sees you, loves you, and longs to be with you both now and into eternity.

Other Articles by John Fulton

• The Ways of Demons and the Legacy of Eve
• The Spirit Realm is Real
• The God Destroyer and the Path to Righteousness 
• What is Salvation?
• What is Life? What is Death? Are Zombies Real?

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* Cover Image by u_0ggt36rw44 from Pixabay