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Hi,
Hebr12.18f
“For you [like the Israelites did and unsaved do]have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that thiose who heard begged that no further word should be spoken to them.
For they could not bear the command
'If even a beast touches the mountain it shall be stoned'
And so terrible was the sight that Moses said
“I am full of fear and trembling'
But you[the saved]have come to mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel.
See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven”Jesus has torn the temple curtain of his flesh allowing those in him to approach the throne of grace as he can-freely and in complete safety. Those still outside of the temple sanctums[Rev 11.1-2] are still in a terrifying situation before a God who cannot and will not be appeased by any other means and will punish and destroy all rebels and sinners.
Make sure of your safety and security in the Son.
Hi,
1Peter.4.10f
” As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God, whoever serves is to do so as who is serving by the strength God supplies;so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the the glory and dominion forever and ever.Amen.”Jesus Christ glorified God in his life and death. He was not that God but the Son of that God. We, who are like grass before God [1Peter 1.24]or grasshoppers [Is 40.22] continue that work of glorifying God in and through the Son.
Hi,
Jn 13.3
” Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he came forth from God , and was going back to God,..”So “the Father” and “God” are interchangeable words.
Jesus is not the Father God.
He was sent from God.
God gave him all things into his hands.
He was going back to God in heaven from whence he came.THERE IS NO TRINITY GOD.
Y is it so hard to accept the truth. The apostles said he was God and he himself claimed it. The Holy is also God
Hi liljon,
If Jesus is God then who is his God?
Jn 20 17
” Jesus said to her…. 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God'”Hi Liljon,
If Jesus has a God then that God must be greatrer than he is no matter how divine his nature is. He has a God-scripture says so. And he said the Father is that God. He also said the Father is greater than he is so that fits.
If he has a God then he cannot also be part of that God also surely? How could he worship himself?
How could he both be the God worshipping the greater God and the God being worshipped?Commonsense does still apply.
This is in responce to Cubes first statements.
YOU DON'T FIND THE NAME FOR GOD IN THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES (OLD TESTAMENT) OF MOST BIBLES TODAY. THIS DOESN'T MEAN IT WASN'T ORIGINALLY THERE. NEITHER DOES THE ABSENCE OF HIS NAME IN THE GREEK SCRIPTURES IN MODERN BIBLES MEAN THAT IT WASN'T ORIGINALLY THERE.Jerome, in the fourth century, wrote: “Matthew, who is also Levi, and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language and characters for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed.” (De viris inlustribus, chap. III) This Gospel includes 11 direct quotations of portions of the Hebrew Scriptures where the Tetragrammaton is found. There is no reason to believe that Matthew did not quote the passages as they were written in the Hebrew text from which he quoted.
Other inspired writers who contributed to the contents of the Christian Greek Scriptures quoted hundreds of passages from the Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. Many of these passages included the Hebrew Tetragrammaton right in the Greek text of early copies of the Septuagint. In harmony with Jesus’ own attitude regarding his Father’s name, Jesus’ disciples would have retained that name in those quotations.—Compare John 17:6, 26.
In Journal of Biblical Literature, George Howard of the University of Georgia wrote: “We know for a fact that Greek-speaking Jews continued to write [tetragramaton] within their Greek Scriptures. Moreover, it is most unlikely that early conservative Greek-speaking Jewish Christians varied from this practice. Although in secondary references to God they probably used the words [God] and [Lord], it would have been extremely unusual for them to have dismissed the Tetragram from the biblical text itself. . . . Since the Tetragram was still written in the copies of the Greek Bible which made up the Scriptures of the early church, it is reasonable to believe that the N[ew] T[estament] writers, when quoting from Scripture, preserved the Tetragram within the biblical text. . . . But when it was removed from the Greek O[ld] T[estament], it was also removed from the quotations of the O[ld] T[estament] in the N[ew] T[estament]. Thus somewhere around the beginning of the second century the use of surrogates [substitutes] must have crowded out the Tetragram in both Testaments.”—Vol. 96, No. 1, March 1977, pp. 76, 77.
AS FOR THE NAME OF GOD BEING IN THE GREEK SCRIPTURES (NEW TESTAMENT) OF YOUR BIBLE, IT PROBABLY IS. YOU JUST HAVE TO LOOK A LITTLE HARDER. IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION FOR EXAMPLE, MANY BIBLES CONTAIN THE EXPRESSION: “HALLELUJAH.” HALLELUJAH LITERALLY MEANS: PRAISE JAH. JAH IS THE SHORTENED FORM OF THE DIVINE NAME, THE FIRST TWO LETTERS OF THE TETRAGRAMATON.
DOES GOD HAVE A NAME?
The King James version, which I don't have on me says at Psalm 83:18: “That men may know that thou, whose name art JEHOVAH are the most high over all the earth.” It says something very similar to that. I don't have that Bible.
The God of the Bible most certainly does have a name, a self-designated name, that he chose to have put in his inspired book some 7000 times. If you add up all the occurences of the titles that are used for God, such as: God, King, Lord, Almighty, Creator, Father, etc, it doesn't come close to adding up to 7000. His name is important to him, AS IT SHOULD BE TO US.Jehovah (Yahweh in Hebrew) is different than Jesus (Yeshua or Yehoshua in Hebrew)
Near the end of the Bible, we find these words:
“If anyone makes an addition to these things, God will add to him
the plagues that are written in this scroll; and IF ANYONE TAKES ANYTHING AWAY from the words of the scroll of this prophecy, God will take his portion away from the trees of life.”—Revelation 22:18, 19; see also Deuteronomy 4:2.What would happen to someone who took away God's very name?
GOD'S NAME IN THE BIBLE
WHERE DID IT GO AND HOW DID IT GET THERE?
JESUS AND GOD'S NAME.The first language used in writing the Bible was Hebrew, and when the Hebrew language was written down, the writers wrote only consonants—not vowels. Hence, when the inspired writers wrote God’s name, they naturally did the same thing and wrote only the consonants.
While ancient Hebrew was an everyday spoken language, this presented no problem. The pronunciation of the Name was familiar to the Israelites and when they saw it in writing they supplied the vowels without thinking (just as, for an English reader, the abbreviation “Ltd.” represents “Limited”.)
Two things happened to change this situation. First, a superstitious idea arose among the Jews that it was wrong to say the divine name out loud; so when they came to it in their Bible reading they uttered the Hebrew word ’Adho·nai´ (“Sovereign Lord”). Further, as time went by, the ancient Hebrew language itself ceased to be spoken in everyday conversation, and in this way the original Hebrew pronunciation of God’s name was eventually forgotten.
In order to ensure that the pronunciation of the Hebrew language as a whole would not be lost, Jewish scholars of the second half of the first millennium C.E. invented a system of points to represent the missing vowels, and they placed these around the consonants in the Hebrew Bible. Thus, both vowels and consonants were written down, and the pronunciation as it was at that time was preserved.
When it came to God’s name, instead of putting the proper vowel signs around it, in most cases they put other vowel signs to remind the reader that he should say ’Adho·nai´. From this came the spelling Iehouah, and, eventually, Jehovah became the accepted pronunciation of the divine name in English. This retains the essential elements of God’s name from the Hebrew original.
No one can say for sure exactly when orthodox Jews ceased to pronounce God’s name out loud and instead substituted the Hebrew words for God and Sovereign Lord. Some believe that God’s name passed out of everyday use well before Jesus’ time. But there is strong evidence that the high priest continued to pronounce it at religious services at the temple—particularly on the day of Atonement—right up until the temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. Hence, when Jesus was on earth, the pronunciation of the name was known, although perhaps it was not widely used.
JESUS AND THE NAME. (The name Jesus means: Jehovah is Salvation.)
On one occasion, Jesus stood up in a synagogue and read a portion of the scroll of Isaiah. The section he read was what we today call Isaiah 61:1, 2, where God’s name appears more than once. (Luke 4:16-21) Would he have refused to pronounce the divine name there, substituting “Lord” or “God”? Of course not. That would have meant following the unscriptural tradition of the Jewish religious leaders. Rather, we read: “He was teaching them as a person having authority, and not as their scribes.”—Matthew 7:29.In fact, as we learned earlier, he taught his followers to pray to God: “Let your name be sanctified.” (Matthew 6:9) And in prayer on the night before his execution, he said to his Father: “I have made your name manifest to the men you gave me out of the world . . . Holy Father, watch over them on account of your own name which you have given me.”—John 17:6, 11.
Yes, it would be most unreasonable to think that Jesus held back from using God’s name, especially when he quoted from those portions of the Hebrew Scriptures that contained it.
THE EARLY CHRISTIANS
The apostle Peter, in his well-known speech at Pentecost, pointed out a vital part of the Christian message when he quoted the words of the prophet Joel: “Everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will get away safe.”—Joel 2:32; Acts 2:21.Would Peter, when quoting from Joel, would he have changed the quote and removed God's name?
Nor would any of the other Bible writers when they were quoting from the Hebrew Scriptures.
GOD'S NAME AND BIBLE TRANSLATORS
EARLY in the second century, after the last of the apostles had died, the falling away from the Christian faith foretold by Jesus and his followers began in earnest. Pagan philosophies and doctrines infiltrated the congregation; sects and divisions arose, and the original purity of faith was corrupted. And God’s name ceased to be used.As this apostate Christianity spread, the need arose to translate the Bible from its original Hebrew and Greek into other languages. How did the translators render God’s name in their translations? Usually, they used the equivalent of “Lord.” A very influential version of that time was the Latin Vulgate, a translation of the Bible by Jerome into everyday Latin. Jerome rendered the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) by substituting Dominus, “Lord.”
Eventually, new languages, such as French, English and Spanish, began to emerge in Europe. However, the Catholic Church discouraged the translating of the Bible into these new languages. Thus, while Jews, using the Bible in the original Hebrew language, refused to pronounce God’s name when they saw it, most “Christians” heard the Bible read in Latin translations that did not use the name.
GODS NAME IN THE “NEW TESTAMENT”
THE position of God’s name is unshakable in the Hebrew Scriptures, the “Old Testament.” Although the Jews eventually stopped pronouncing it, their religious beliefs prevented them from removing the name when they made copies of older manuscripts of the Bible. Hence, the Hebrew Scriptures contain God’s name more often than any other name.With the Christian Greek Scriptures, the “New Testament,” the situation is different. Manuscripts of the book of Revelation (the last book of the Bible) have God’s name in its abbreviated form, “Jah,” (in the word “Hallelujah”). But apart from that, no ancient Greek manuscript that we possess today of the books from Matthew to Revelation contains God’s name in full. Does that mean that the name should not be there? That would be surprising in view of the fact that Jesus’ followers recognized the importance of God’s name, and Jesus taught us to pray for God’s name to be sanctified. So what happened?
To understand this, remember that the manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures that we possess today are not the originals. The actual books written by Matthew, Luke and the other Bible writers were well used and quickly wore out. Hence, copies were made, and when those wore out, further copies were made of those copies. This is what we would expect, since the copies were usually made to be used, not preserved.
There are thousands of copies of the Christian Greek Scriptures in existence today, but most of them were made during or after the fourth century of our Common Era. This suggests a possibility: Did something happen to the text of the Christian Greek Scriptures before the fourth century that resulted in the omission of God’s name? The facts prove that something did.
The Name Was There
We can be sure that the apostle Matthew included God’s name in his Gospel. Why? Because he wrote it originally in Hebrew. In the fourth century, Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate, reported: “Matthew, who is also Levi, and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language . . . Who translated it after that in Greek is not sufficiently ascertained. Moreover, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea.”
Since Matthew wrote in Hebrew, it is inconceivable that he did not use God’s name, especially when quoting from parts of the “Old Testament” that contained the name. However, other writers of the second part of the Bible wrote for a worldwide audience in the international language of that time, Greek. Hence, they did not quote from the original Hebrew writings but from the Septuagint Greek version. And even Matthew’s Gospel was eventually translated into Greek. Would God’s name have appeared in these Greek writings?
Well, some very old fragments of the Septuagint Version that actually existed in Jesus’ day have survived down to our day, and it is noteworthy that the personal name of God appeared in them. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Volume 2, page 512) says: “Recent textual discoveries cast doubt on the idea that the compilers of the LXX [Septuagint] translated the tetragrammaton YHWH by kyrios. The oldest LXX MSS (fragments) now available to us have the tetragrammaton written in Heb[rew] characters in the G[ree]k text. This custom was retained by later Jewish translators of the O[ld] T[estament] in the first centuries A.D.” Therefore, whether Jesus and his disciples read the Scriptures in Hebrew or Greek, they would come across the divine name.
Thus, Professor George Howard, of the University of Georgia, U.S.A., made this comment: “When the Septuagint which the New Testament church used and quoted contained the Hebrew form of the divine name, the New Testament writers no doubt included the Tetragrammaton in their quotations.” (Biblical Archaeology Review, March 1978, page 14) What authority would they have had to do otherwise?
God’s name remained in Greek translations of the “Old Testament” for a while longer. In the first half of the second century C.E., the Jewish proselyte Aquila made a new translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, and in this he represented God’s name by the Tetragrammaton in ancient Hebrew characters. In the third century, Origen wrote: “And in the most accurate manuscripts THE NAME occurs in Hebrew characters, yet not in today’s Hebrew [characters], but in the most ancient ones.”
Even in the fourth century, Jerome writes in his prologue to the books of Samuel and Kings: “And we find the name of God, the Tetragrammaton, in certain Greek volumes even to this day expressed in ancient letters.”
Hi david,
I agree the descriptive name for God,YHWH should never have been changed in translation and that has caused confusion and division.
But when Jesus said to pray
“hallowed be Thy name”
and in Jn 17.6
“I have manifested Your Name to the men you gave me out of the world” I would have thought it was not the NAME itself that was being highlighted but the person that the name represented.Names are intricately bound up with the person the name identifies.
Otherwise the verse in Jn 17.11
” Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given me, that they may be one even as we are one”
would mean that Jesus and we are GIVEN God's name, whereas instead surely it means we are united in God's will with Jesus and entitled to God's blessing hand as he was.The name represents the person. Jesus came in the name of his Father. He had all authority to act in place of the Father. We ,who are in him, have authority to act in his name and thus also in the Father's name.
What do you think?
Hi david,
Jesus said he “manifested your Name” to the disciples but there is no record of him teaching specifically about the Name of God is there? But there is a record of him teaching that he who had seen him had seen the Father. So he seemed to mean that he manifested the Father, living in him by the Spirit, in His nature and power. The Name representing the person.
He also came in the Name of the Father with the Name representing the full authority in power that had been given to him. The apostles worked in the name of Jesus healing and raising the dead by the power and authority of that name.Hi david,
Bishop Eusebius also spoke of a Hebrew copy of the OT in a library, later destroyed by the Roman Emperor. He quoted it as saying in Matt 28 19 to baptise “in his name” rather than in the trinitarian formula, and there is a forum on this.Right, in regards to your first responce, yes, “hallowed be thy name.” Or, in modern english, “let your name be sactified,” or held as holy. Of course God's name is holy. Holy Holy Holy is Jehovah of Armies. But it's not treated as such. Ever since Satan smeared God's name with reproach it has been treated that way. Being removed from Bibles is one such example. Being labelled as a mysterious unknowable, unnamed God who is part of a trinity, a God who burns people forever in fire for a few years of sin on the earth, a God who doesn't care about the wickedness and suffering on the earth today. This is part of the lying slander that has been heaped upon his name. When we pray for his name to be sactified, we're asking him to take action and remove all reproach by vindicating his sovereignty and sactifying his name and all his name stands for. And it stands for a lot. Jehovah basically means: “he who causes to become.” He causes his purposes to come to fulfillment. He's the only one who could ever bear that name.
His name being sactified is connected to the rest of that prayer.It's really late, I've had a long day. I don't even have time to read any of your other responces. I'll look at them in the morning.
OK, it's an hour later. I'm awake.
I'm sorry Nick. I understand what you're saying. And I agree. But that's not what I was trying to get at.
“Those knowing your name will trust in you, for you will certainly not leave those looking for you, O Jehovah.”—Psalm 9:10
Does ‘knowing God’s name’ involve merely an intellectual knowledge that God’s name in Hebrew is YHWH, or in English, Jehovah? No, it means more than that. When Moses was in Mount Sinai, “Jehovah proceeded to come down in the cloud and station himself with [Moses] there and declare the name of Jehovah.” What did this declaring of the name of Jehovah entail? A description of his qualities: “Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and truth.” (Exodus 34:5, 6) Again, shortly before his death, Moses said to the Israelites: “I shall declare the name of Jehovah.” What followed? Mention of some of His grand attributes, and then a review of what God had accomplished toward Israel for the sake of His name. (Deuteronomy 32:3-43) Hence, knowing God’s name means learning what that name represents and worshiping the God who possesses it.
Since Jehovah has linked his name with his qualities, purposes and acts, we can see why the Bible says that God’s name is holy. (Leviticus 22:32) It is majestic, great, fear-inspiring and unreachably high. (Psalm 8:1; 99:3; 148:13) Yes, God’s name is more than a mere label. It represents him as a person. It was not merely a temporary name to be used for a time and then to be superseded by a title such as “Lord.” Jehovah himself said to Moses: “‘Jehovah . . .’ This is my name to time indefinite, and this is the memorial of me to generation after generation.”—Exodus 3:15.
Hence, the sanctification of God’s name is far more important than any other issue. All of God’s purposes are linked to his name. Mankind’s problems began when Satan first profaned Jehovah’s name by calling Him, in effect, a liar and unfit to rule the human race. (Genesis 3:1-6; John 8:44) Only when God’s name is properly vindicated will mankind enjoy complete relief from the disastrous effects of Satan’s lie. That is why Christians pray so fervently for the sanctification of God’s name.
The night before his execution, Jesus highlighted the importance of God’s name to Christians. After saying to his Father: “I have made your name known to them and will make it known,” he goes on to explain, “in order that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in union with them.” (John 17:26) The disciples’ learning the name of God involved their personally coming to know the love of God. Jesus had made it possible for them to become acquainted with God as their loving Father.—John 17:3.
At a first-century meeting of the Christian apostles and older men in Jerusalem, the disciple James said: “Symeon has related thoroughly how God for the first time turned his attention to the nations to take out of them a people for his name.” Could you be identified with those whom God takes out to be a “people for his name” if you fail to use or bear that name?—Acts 15:14.
Jehovah protects those who love his name. The psalmist said: “Because on me he has set his affection, I shall also provide him with escape. I shall protect him because he has come to know my name.” (Psalm 91:14) He also remembers them: “At that time those in fear of Jehovah spoke with one another, each one with his companion, and Jehovah kept paying attention and listening. And a book of remembrance began to be written up before him for those in fear of Jehovah and for those thinking upon his name.”—Malachi 3:16.
Many centuries ago, the prophet Micah boldly said: “All the peoples, for their part, will walk each one in the name of its god; but we, for our part, shall walk in the name of Jehovah our God to time indefinite, even forever.”—Micah 4:5.
I no longer remember what your question was Nick, but I hope this answers it.
While it's true that when the Bible speaks of Jehovah's name, it often means 'What the name stands for,' it's also true that the God of the Bible has a name. A name is sometimes just that, a name. God has a name. When his son, who dearly loves his name quoted from hebrew passages that contained the name, did that son not speak that name? Or did he hide his Father's name? When the early Christians quoted from Hebrew texts, would they have removed that holy name and altered the scripture? Or perhaps, when the apostasy got underway, the one who wants to slander God's name (Satan) did his best to remove that name? Could it be that because different writing materials were used and the Greek writings didn't last anywhere near as long as the hebrew writings; could it be that that's why during that fuzzy sleepy period of drowsiness on the part of the congregations, it was so easy to justify removing God's name from the Greek scriptures as they were re-copied?It seems to me that if Jesus could manifest his Father's name to them, make known his attributes and personality and all he stands for, then he would probably also not shy away from actually using his fathers actual name. If the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures loved God's name enough to use it thousands of times, how much more so would the son want to make his father's name known?
The Messiah did speak the Father's Name, and you can prove this too by comparing ( Matt.4:4; Luke 4:4) with ( Deut.8:3).
In the ( O.K.J.V.) of ( Matt.4:4; Luke 4:4) where Messiah said “”…but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of “” GOD( English)””, and “” Theos( Greek)””.
Here, the Messiah quoted( compare) from ( Deut.8:3)
which should read, “” …. but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of “” THE LORD”( K.J.V.)( =S.E.C. Heb.Numbs. 3050,3068==YAH=YHWH) doth man live.””He absolutely did declare the Father's Name as He said so in ( John Chapter 17).
The Greeks substituted their ” Theos ” title where the Name YHWH= YAH( Psalms 68:4) should be in ( Matt.4:4; Luke 4:4) verse.
Eliyah C.
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