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Revelations 2:17
To the one who conquers … I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.' The Book of Exodus in Hebrew is called ‘Shemot’, meaning ‘names’. It is the Book of ‘Names’. “Names’ is the first principal word that appears in the book’s narrative and Judaism names the Books of the Bible using the book's first main noun or verb. The names of the different people involved in the scenarios of the book appear little by little, but what we discover most in the Book of Shemot is the Names of God. God Himself introduces His Names first to Moses when he asks, If I come to the people of Israel … and they ask me, 'What is his name' (Exodus 3:13) ‘and to Pharaoh when he challenged Moses’ divine message with, "Who is Adonai, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go (Exodus 5:2)?” Hashem answered Moses’ question by showing His great power to conquer in order to save, and Pharaoh's by showing His great power to conquer in order to destroy. In our Western philosophically Greek culture, we look at names as a sound bite by which we call people. Sad to say, this is also the way we look at the Name of God: an identifying sound bite to which He should answer when called upon. In the Semitic world of the Bible, Names refer to what you are, to what you where created to be. Names describe who you are, the reason and circumstance of your birth; your qualities and/or properties. By knowing your name people know something very important about you. In Exodus, the Father and Creator introduces Himself by many names, not as sound bite we are supposed to use to make sure we are addressing the right person, but as a memorial of what He is in what he does. Yeshua said that the Name of the Father should be hallowed, sanctified (Matthew 6:9), which means set aside for specials times and uses. Yeshua said these things quoting parts of an ancient Jewish prayer referring to the practice of only pronouncing the Sacred Name in the precincts of the Temple and during times of devoted prayer; never in common discussion. Yeshua followed that practice, and also taught His disciples to follow His example of simply calling Hashem: "Avinu' or, 'Our Father' (Matthew 6:9), Western believers have twisted that Jewish application or respect toward protecting God’s name into the idea of a rabbinic conspiracy to hide it for themselves. This idea born from anti-Semitism still lingers. Today each of us has a name given to us by our parents. In this world where truth is hidden under the fiction of a physical veil, this name may or may not have anything to do with us. In the World to Come, Yeshua has promised us a new name revealing to the world our properties, our qualities, in a sense who we really are (Revelations 2:17). Come to think of it, it may a scary thought for some of us! At that time, we will be fully known even as we have been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). May it be soon Abba, even in our days!
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John 17:21
That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, One thing I have discovered in my life with God our Father is that it is always subject to change. Changes are constant in our lives especially when we endeavor to follow Him. Change is an unchangeable fact; it is inevitable because He doesn’t change. Because He doesn’t change we are the ones who have to do the moving and the changing in order to adapt to His unchangeable continuity. One time a man complained that he didn’t feel as close to God as he used to, when his friend asked him, “Who moved”. Broken friendships and marriages work much the same way; we must ask ourselves, ‘Who moved?” Or “Who changed their priorities?” God doesn’t, so when we feel further from Him than we used to we must have changed things somehow. The Creator of all things expressed His unchangeable nature when He gave His Name to Moses on the Mount. He introduced Himself then as”אהיה אשׁר אהיה” roughly translated as “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE”, and meaning “I do not change” (Malachi 3:6). Many people have fallen into the trap that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is different than the One of the Apostolic Scriptures. A thorough understanding of God’s Name as introduced to Moses on the Mount claims the exact opposite. A solid grasp on God’s unchanging nature spares us from falling into errant theology. Yeshua Himself directly disclaimed this theology of being different than the Father. He claims total unity of concepts with the Father when He says “even as we (the Father and I) are one, (John 17:11, 21). Yeshua teaches us that because He is on the ‘same page’ with the Father, if we go on the ‘same page’ with Him, we will also be on the ‘Same page’ with the Father. This reflects the standard Jewish Chassidic theology of approaching God through your spiritual mentor. God doesn’t change. He remains the same from creation until today. From the beginning His standards of mercy, grace giving, patience, goodness, compassion, and forgiveness have been the core of His being. Now, and just as it was in the past, His people have always been able to rely on these attributes in order to come in His Presence, but so are the rest of His Name’s attributes unchangeable: truth, justice, and retribution (Exodus 34:5-7). May we never forget it as we pray to Him who never changes. (You may notice I didn’t list ‘love’ as an attribute of God. It is a purposed omission in my listing. Love being abstract is better defined through the afore-mentioned attributes). |
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