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Sunday, May 8, 2011

The Name of God

The usage of God's name in scripture can be an exhaustive study in itself, but here are a few interesting thoughts from Dr. John D. Morris, expositor, and President of the Institute For Creation Research.

God's primary name in the Bible is "Jehovah" and it appears around 7,000 times! The Jews were almost afraid to use the name for fear they would 'use it in vain,' so they substituted the word Adonai, which means Master or Lord. Our English versions followed suit, using "LORD" for Jehovah (all caps to distinguish it from Adonai, or Lord).  Therefore, the name Jehovah appears only four times in the KJV, and this can cause us to miss the full impact at times.

This is true especially in the New Testament quotations from the OT passages which used the name "Jehovah," for which "Lord" was substituted. If "Jehovah" had been used, indicating deity, we would have a much stronger meaning, and it would prove beyond a doubt the full deity of Jesus Christ represented in the NT.

For instance, Hebrews 1:10 reads, "And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands." The entire psalm 102 is praise to the Deity, Jehovah, but here in Hebrews it addresses as "Lord."  Were we to read "Thou, Jehovah, in the beginning has Thou laid the foundations of the earth" and realize that Jesus is the subject of the passage, we recognize that Jesus can be none other than the Creator God.

Also, in Matthew 3:3, where John the Baptist fulfilled his prophesied role by teaching "Prepare ye the way of the Lord," quoting from Isaiah 40:3, we see Jesus equated with the Jehovah of the OT, for Isaiah uses the term Lord, or Jehovah.

In these and many other examples, we see Christ as the Jehovah Jesus, and that the Lord of the OT is the Jesus of the NT.

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