Let's turn once again to Exodus chapter 3. Since we didn't get to finish last week, maybe we'll get to finish today. Well, just this portion. So Exodus chapter 3, beginning again at verse 13. Then Moses said to God, if I come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, what is his name? What shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, say this to the people of Israel. I am, has sent me to you. God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel. The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever. And thus, I am to be remembered throughout all generations. All right. Last week, this is the review part. I could give a quiz, but I'm not that cruel. I didn't like giving them when I was a teacher. Last week, we started looking at a particular name of God, which is? Yahweh. Yahweh. And it's been in theological circles given a label. Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton, yeah. Tetra for? Well, grammaton is related to writing, so just think of it as four letters. What does it mean? I am and I am. OK. Yeah. The eternally self-existent one. Yeah. The eternally self-existent one. Anything else? They're coveting God? Okay. So, I think I pointed this out last week, that when we look at the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew, it is most likely related to the verb to be, and it is the third person. He is. Now, when we just read from Exodus chapter 3, beginning of verse 14, we have there, I am. Well, that's actually what you see there in Hebrew. First person, I am. When you see LORD in all caps in the Old Testament, it is, he is, technically. And that of course assumes, and I think it's right, that his name is derived from the verb to be, and therefore he is. That's kind of what we talked about last week, among a number of other things. Now, I was hoping also last week to get through some of the compound names using the Tetragrammaton. Jehovah, Yahweh, He is. So we'll get to do that now. Woo-hoo! First one, this is probably one you've all heard before and is quite familiar. Yahweh or the Lord sabbeoth. What's that mean? Lord of hosts. It is not Lord of the Sabbath. I know that's the first thing. It sounds like Sabbath. It's not. Lord of hosts. The first use of it occurs in 1 Samuel 1 verse 3. And it's frequent in Samuel. It is a name or title of God that is used to encourage people when threatened. So for instance, at the very early stage of the book of Samuel, what period in Israel's redemptive history was this? Judges. Judges. The judges were still going on. So in the time of the judges, wouldn't it make sense that you have a name that is given to Israel to encourage them when threatened? So there you have it. It occurs frequently in the restoration prophets, such as Jeremiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Again, that would make sense. Babylon, and then after them, the Persians, being the dominant nation, shall we say, empire, The people needed encouragement, especially as they came back to the promised land. Now the question is hosts, hosts, the Lord of hosts. Well, what does that represent? Who are the hosts? What are the hosts? What's that? Armies of heaven. What's that? Which people? God's people on earth or Israel at the time. Yeah. So which is it? The armies of heaven or the people of Israel? Yes. Good answer. I got to mix things up a bit more. You're getting too used to me. Actually interestingly the word for host could also be used in reference to the stars so once again, it's a question of context and That's what's gonna happen. So Yahweh is sabbeoth Lord of hosts simply put it is a given to remind us that God is sufficient to deliver us from our enemies and Are we good on that name? Anybody think of a hymn where that's used? Right. Yeah. Lord Sabaoth, his name. Who's talking about it in that hymn? Well, that's true. It's talking about Christ. And when you think of Joshua, Now, again, the expression, Lord of hosts, really does not show up until 1 Samuel. That's where you first see it. But you think about Joshua after they crossed the Jordan, just prior to hitting Jericho, Joshua decides to go walk off on his own. And what does he run into? Yeah, the commander of the army of the Lord, as the individual says. Joshua falls down on his face. The individual that Joshua sees accepts the worship. This is a pre-incarnate Christophany. As commander of the armies of the Lord, I have come. And I love the statement because Joshua says, are you for us or for our enemies? VeggieTales actually does okay with this. Are you for us or for our enemies? And the answer is great, neither. But as commander of the army of the Lord, I have come. None of us. And unfortunately, this has been an issue throughout church history. No nation should stand there and think they have divine right. As if, well, God's on our side. You know, that spills over into sports. You got two football teams before the game, and they're praying, God's with us. Well, somebody's going to lose. I really don't think the Lord has bets down on who's going to win. I don't think he cares. He'll use it in some way to advance his purposes, but we need to get off this mindset. It's not a question of whether or not God is on your side, and we know the Psalms talk about that, but even then it's always in the context of redemption. What matters to you and to me, are we on his side? Okay, that's enough rewards. The next one, you've probably heard this one too. Yahweh or the Lord Jehovah Jireh. Have you heard this one? What's it mean? Who knows? The Lord who provides, the Lord provides or the Lord will provide. It is seen when, who knows? When Abraham is asked or better yet commanded to sacrifice Isaac Jehovah Jireh the Lord will provide Ultimately this names and it's Genesis 22 14 that you see the name Ultimately it speaks of the essential character of the gospel in that God provides the sacrifice to save sinners and So where do we see Jehovah Jireh fulfilled? In Christ. Well, you want the Hebrew? The transliteration of spelling is typically, it can vary, J-I-R-E-H. By the way, that's one of the somewhat annoying things is that there really is no perfect standard of transliteration of Hebrew and Greek words into English. And so you'll see differences as you read from the various authors. So don't let that throw you off. And so even for this, I saw different spellings. But they got the Hebrew right, so that's really what matters. Yes? I get myself in trouble because I think out loud, and it may be very obvious, but sometimes God shows his name directly to himself, right? That's correct. Just like Abraham is stating this name. Yeah. The Lord will provide, and that's what happens. And he sets up an altar, effectively, to that name. So, the next one, Yahweh or Jehovah, Nisi. I have as a transliteration, N-I-S-S-I. Okay. Who knows this one? Say it louder. Yes, it is. The Lord is my banner. Okay? We see this in Exodus chapter 17 verse 15. And you can look there if you want. It's only a few pages ahead of what you just looked at in Exodus 3. But it comes when the Amalekites, this is before they even get to Sinai, but when the Amalekites come and threaten you have this name given the Lord is my banner and so we rally behind the Lord so Isaiah chapter 11 verse 10 I think I've got this verse correct picks up on the imagery here and that's a passage that refers to the Messiah you starting to see a theme here I hope so The next name, and to be perfectly honest, I don't think this name list of names is completely exhaustive. So Yahweh or Jehovah Rapha, which is interesting because in the context in which it's found, It's it's more the Lord your and the spelling is a bit different So this is just formally titled this way. I don't know why various places do that, but that's okay Does anybody know what Jehovah or Yahweh Rafa means? The Lord is or the Lord heals and In the context, where you first see it is Exodus 15, 26, after the healing of the bitter water. The Lord, your healer. And so Rapha, the verb, to heal, has attached to the end of it a second person plural pronoun, your healer. The concept is seen, for example, in Psalm 103, verse 3. Who does what? He heals all your diseases. Which, of course, the healing of diseases is a picture of what? Christ cleansing us of our sin. And this is what Christ himself did. He healed. To point to greater healing of redeeming us from our sin. This one you should know. Yahweh or Jehovah Shalom. Peace. The Lord is peace. This was used with an altar that was erected by Gideon in Judges chapter 6 verse 24. The Lord is peace. That's prior to Gideon going to war. Isn't that interesting? That's because the result was known already. Turn to Ephesians chapter 2 verse 14. The context of Ephesians 2.14 deals with God's bringing together Jew and Gentile under one covenant, which I think many dispensationalists lack this passage in their Bible. Somebody read verse 14 of chapter 2. Okay, he himself is our peace who's the he Christ he is our peace I Hope you're picking up on the theme here this early Sunday morning Roy as you're developing this in a series about the doctrine of God, it struck me just moments ago. I've never thought about what a remarkable contrast this is in terms of the literature over against, for example, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, which are just incredibly shallow over against this deep tapestry, all these rich hints where No human writer would have done this, at least not without a lot more skill than you see with Joseph Smith, for example, or in the Koran. All these things all tie together to give us pictures about what God is like. And they show up in the appropriate places in the history. Yeah, remember if we piggyback on what Roy just said, last week we started talking about the name Yahweh Jehovah and recognizing that the full extent of its meaning, as much as we as humans are able to understand that full extent, is revealed to us in the context of covenant redemption. We talked about how Abraham seemed to know the name, just a name, just in the same way that I know most everybody's name in here. I know practically no middle names, and that's OK. But the thing is, I may not have a background as to why you were named what you were named. Abraham knew God's name, but why did he have that name? Abraham didn't know. It was revealed to Moses. It was revealed to Moses again when his glory passed before him in Exodus 34 as well. So, remember that as we talk about the names of God, it is revelatory of who he is. It is revelatory of what he is. And that's why, personally, I think it's good if you look at the names and then move on to a study of his attributes. That's kind of why I'm going in this direction. In Bothing's Reformed Dogmatics, it's kind of blended together. He discusses the name and discusses the attributes somewhat generally. But again, it's not wrong to do that. How do you deal with an infinite God who is simple and then try to break him up in discussions of a somewhat academic nature? Well, you've got to do something. All right, Christ is our peace. The next one, Yahweh, R-O-E. It's often transliterated as R-O-I, but that makes it sound like Roy, but the pronunciation would be R-O-E if you look at it. Nobody probably knows what this one is. But you've heard it so many times. The Lord is my shepherd. Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. And of course, John chapter 10. What does Christ say there? I am the Good Shepherd. And by the way, the way Christ says it, some will argue, and I think there's legitimacy to this, that in the Greek it's somewhat emphatic on purpose. I, myself, am is one way you can read that, because what we see there in the Greek is the use of the pronoun I, and when you see the use of the pronoun, Just like you kind of do in Hebrew, but especially in Greek, frequently it is for emphatic purposes. I am. Well, guess what? It's one of his many I am sayings. I am the good shepherd. So again, Christ. Yeah? Yeah, the difficulty is you look at it, the consonants are different, but the vowel pointings are similar. So this is an issue with Hebrew where Visually, you can see they're clearly two different words, but the pronunciations are almost identical. So at least maybe a true Hebrew speaker could hear the distinction between them. There might be some minor discrepancy that we can't pick up on or understand. So what is that? The Lord sees, the other one that we talked about, or the God who sees, what we talked about, El and Elohim. Yeah. All right. The next one, Yahweh Sidcanu or Sidcanu, depending, this is another one of these, you know, the spelling is a question. How do you bring it in here? This one is the Lord, our righteousness. Okay, why? Bring this out. Flesh this out. The Lord our righteousness. Come on, we're Reformed, we're Protestant. This one should be easy, right? Because of the great exchange that we receive Christ's righteousness by faith. Christ our righteousness. You think about Romans, and see, we look at quotations in the New Testament, but we fail to recognize how many allusions there are to the Old Testament. Romans chapter 3, verse 21, but now a righteousness from God. How's that not connected to His name, the Lord our righteousness? It's found in Jeremiah chapter 23 verses 5 & 6 which of course is a messianic passage. Paul picks up on this theme in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verse 30 but he is our righteousness. All right The next one, and I'm going to have to look at the Hebrew, because I'll butcher if I look at the English here, or the English lettering. Yahweh or Jehovah, Mecad-di-shechem. Mecad-di-shechem. The Lord who sanctifies. You want a best guess on an English spelling for this, I'll give it to you, but honestly, it's M-E-Q-U-A-D-D-I-S-H-K-E-M. Uh-huh. Exactly. M-E-Q-U-A-D-D-I-S-H-K-E-M. The root word here is a verb that means to be holy. So when you see the Lord is holy, kadosh, that's the root word, the three letters, holy. On the end, which is the K-E-M, it's a second person plural pronoun. So it's really the Lord who sanctifies you, technically, if you want to deal with that that way. This, of course, is a name that is connected to various laws that God gives. We see an expression of this in Leviticus chapter 20, verses 7 and 8. And interestingly, what we see with respect to this question of sanctification is that in the New Testament, all three persons are picked up with respect to sanctification. To the Father, Jude 1. To the Son, 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30 again. And to the Spirit, 1 Peter 1 verse 2. Now, as an aside, as we get into this discussion with respect to Trinitarianism, which we'll get to eventually, One of the key things that, and this is like a foreshadow, but the work of God is indivisible, which means you cannot really appropriately separate the persons with respect to the work of God. We speak of Christ's redemption, and that's not wrong, but we need to understand that the work of redemption is itself indivisible. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit all take part. That's what we see in creation. So, this is part of a, we'll say a byproduct or a logical conclusion to God's simplicity. There's one will of God. Not two, not three. There's one divine will. Now, when you get to the question of, well, Jesus said, not my will, but yours be done, what do we do then? You're going to have to wait, sorry. All right, so it's attributed to actually all three persons of the Trinity, the Father in Jude 1, the Son in 1 Corinthians 1.30, and the Spirit in 1 Peter 1.2. There are other places, of course. The last one that I'm dealing with, with respect to Yahweh or Jehovah, Yahweh Shema. No, it is not the Lord hears. Okay, I know that's gonna be your first thought, but it's not. This one is actually the Lord is there. The Lord is there. Ezekiel chapter 48 verse 35 In that context it is used to describe the city in which Ezekiel was viewing in his vision and The point is is that in that city? God is there This is a fulfillment of the very essence of the covenant of grace I will be your God and you will be my people. This name, that the Lord is there? Well, not quite. A couple of the letters match Shem's name, I realize, but that's not necessarily going to be the case. So this isn't spelled the same way as other shema. That's correct. It's a little bit different. Yeah, it's transliterated here, S-H-A-M-M-A-H. Yeah, and that would be the common way that most see that as transliterated, S-H-A-M-M-A-H. The shema from Deuteronomy chapter 6 is frequently S-H-E-M-A. So, this is a name that reminds us that God is faithful to his covenant promises, and we see that in its ultimate fulfillment at the end of Revelation. Now, the dwelling place of God is with men. Um, God with us? With? Not quite. Now, Im, the I-M in the front, that's the with. Um, and of course L at the end is God. With us. That's sort of a first person plural pronoun, us. So Imanu, the new especially, is that pronoun. So it actually is a bit of a compounded word. So. All right, I think we've, in one sense, exhausted what we're gonna talk about with respect to Yahweh and Jehovah. I was also last week gonna try to talk about Adonai, the name Adonai, A-D-O-N-A-I, okay? It appears that it comes from the root Adon, meaning master, ruler, owner, lord. A simpler form, adon, may be used even of human lordship. And this is where it gets interesting. And it also will, in certain instances, grate on our 21st century sensibilities. It could be used as an expression of veneration or respect. man to man, slave to master, for example, in Exodus 21 verse 5. There are numerous places, by the way, where this is demonstrated. I'm not sure which one you're thinking of. Well, that's where I was coming to. It is also used, wife to husband. Yeah, we're all starting to squirm on this now, aren't we? Genesis 18, 12. Somebody read that. Sarah laughed to herself, saying, After I have become old, shall I have pleasure and my Lord being old also? Wait, who's being old? My Lord. Guess what word is used there? Guess what? The New Testament picks up on this. Who knows the passage? What's that? Not Hebrews. 1st Peter 3. We see the commendability that Peter gives to Sarah because Sarah called Abram what? I guess this depends on your English translation here. Lord. Some translations even have master. Oh, man, aren't you squirming now? See, all the guys are sitting here, yeah! And all the women are like, uh, no. Now, in today's day and age, I try to avoid the argumentation, especially of the terminology, because both terms have lost all meaning. The question of complementarianism and patriarchy, Because that which fits under patriarchy is a huge umbrella. It's just huge. Guess what? Same problem with complementarianism. You try to flesh this out, and it's difficult. It's not easy. And so when people say that I'm against the patriarchy, even in the church, well, what do you mean by patriarchy? Well, you know, patriarchy. What do you mean? Do you think that the husband should leave the home? Well, yeah. Do you think wives should submit to their husbands? Well, yeah, that's what Paul says. Guess what? That fits under patriarchy. And this is the difficulty, is when you've got the extremes at both ends, what ends up happening is everybody under the umbrella gets fit under the picture of the extreme. And so you've got these complementarians that just look at particular individuals that are extreme on the patriarchy side and just think anybody who holds any kind of patriarchy is just like that. Sorry, that doesn't work. And the reverse is equally true. We're not getting into a discussion of the doctrine of man, but simply put, ontologically, do you remember what this expression ontological means? What's that in reference to? Because we talked about this with respect to God. It's a philosophical term. Anybody remember? This is good to know. It has to do with being, the very essence of what something is. So when we talk about ontologically, we're discussing God. It's about his very being and what he is in his essence. Well, when we talk about mankind ontologically, in terms of being, the essence of what makes mankind mankind, there is zero difference between man and woman. But they have different functions. And what happens on both ends is that they blur the distinction and try to incorporate function into ontology or ontology into function. Now, at no extra charge, I brought this up on a Wednesday night. Here is one reason that we can understand that ontologically speaking, men and women are the same. Christ came as a man and died for both men and women. If ontologically men and women were different, Christ could not have died for women. Then you can't explain Lydia. Then you've got all kinds of other problems. Function is different than being. Yeah That is usually the case and again You have to be careful because when you get to for instance Peter's Sermon on Pentecost He doesn't you he says men of Israel. He doesn't use the generic where we get anthropology Anthropos he uses males there And we need to remember that the reason he does that is because, quite literally, that's who he's talking to. This was Pentecost, one of the feasts that all the males were required to go to. So that's why he says it. He's not being a sexist. That's who's there. It's not hard. If people just pay attention to the context of what's actually taking place, we don't have to get into these ridiculous arguments. So I will tell you this though, to you men in here, if you start expecting your wives to call you lawyer to master, we're going to have to have a conversation. OK? All right, good. All right, that's enough of that. Add an I again. We also see it in other contexts, Genesis chapter 24, this is wife to husband, Ruth chapter 2 verse 13, and that's prior to them actually being married, but Ruth refers to him in that respectful manner. 1 Samuel 1, 15, same thing, Hannah to Elkanah. With respect to God, Adonai is more of a title. I don't have a problem calling it a name. Names and titles are very often interchangeable in the Bible. It refers to his sovereign power. It is used in reference to his nature rather than his lordship over land. He is God. Not just because he has authority, he's got authority based on who he is. Whereas you think about those man-to-man relationships or wife-to-husband, that's a functional difference. God's sovereignty is by virtue of his very nature. He didn't ascend to authority. He was and is authority. So Adonai. If you say in your Old Testaments, Lord, with little o-r-n-d, chances are it's Adonai. You see that in Psalm 110, for instance. Psalm 8, in fact, as well. Isaiah 6, I saw the Lord high and exalted. It's Adonai, it's not Yahweh there. Yeah, correct. Jake? How about that? Christ is the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth. We haven't even gotten the New Testament names. That'll be next week, and that list is not nearly as long. If anything, maybe you can gather, what are a couple of points that I am trying to drive home for you guys with respect to the name of God? What? Christ is God. It points to Christ. What else? He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Yup. His name is holy. Yup. He is all of his attributes. He is all of his attributes. That's a hard one to swallow. He's not made up of attributes. He is his attributes. And yeah, boom, mind blown. When they say God is love, Yeah, well it's true. He is love. But he's also holy, just, righteous, and wrathful. But he's all of those things. He doesn't change. Yeah, there's no imperfection in him. Well, we even need to be careful of emotions. Because, you know, as the divines, and this is going to be real interesting to see what our committee does on the confession with this, but in the chapter on God and the Trinity, he is God without passions. We'll talk about that. We'll get to that. There's another one. I'm leaving you hanging on that. Well, that's a description of the passion week. That's correct. That you'll see. Yeah. It's what he is. Right. Basically, right. God is not controlled by his emotions, if we even use that term for him. Michelle? That's correct. Well God the Father is merciful Well, it's not really a contradiction The way the contradiction is met so to speak is in Christ justice and mercy kiss at the cross man was made in God's image, male and female, that means God is male and female. They're not contradictory. They're complementary. Right. So, you know, I told you guys, this is going to be a fire hose of information, okay? And it's like, yeah, now I've got ten minutes to try to calm down and think this through and then get ready for worship. If anything, with respect, I know some of you took notes, some of you were just listening and that's fine. Remember this, God reveals himself to us in his names. So when you read through the Bible and you see a name of God given, there's a reason he's revealing something of himself to you. And then ultimately, even as we've seen with all these compounds of Yahweh, They point to Christ. Christ fulfills them all completely and perfectly. So that's enough. I'm done talking. Why don't we close in prayer?