The Significant Name of God (20)
YaHUaH - the true God of the Bible - is involved!
André H. Roosma
19 June 2020 (NL original: 9 May 2020)
In my own experience and from my pastoral work with others I have noticed
for quite some time alreay that it is difficult for many of us, in our culture
and time, to really experience daily that God is so involved and close
as the Bible indicates that He is, and to understand His voice well.
It seems like there is something that makes this more difficult.
Jesus spoke of knowing His sheep and that they listen to His voice, but often
we are more used to not hearing His voice every day than hearing Him
clearly.
From the Bible I already had the privilege to learn a lot about how we can
experience God’s proximity more and how we can better understand His voice.
I may also pass that on to others here in the Netherlands, a.o. through
workshops under the title: Immanuel lifestyle (see the Dutch Immanuel levensstijl
website - Immanuel lifestyle website). A great privilege!
Still, it bothered me that it seems as if there is something in the basis
of our Western faith that works against us in these things.
Via my study of the glorious Name of the God of the Bible, YaHUaH1, I had already found a bit of an answer from a somewhat unexpected
angle, but a while ago I came across an article that gave me much more light
on these things.
An nameless, distant God does not elicit worship
Here I first want to share something of what I discovered earlier.
That was while reading in writings of the well-known medieval Jewish scholar
Maimonides. In his Arabic book The Guide for the Perplexed (Dalālatul hā’irīn - translated into Hebrew under the
title: Moreh Nevukhim; from 1190), he writes about the great
Name of God. From his reasonings, the French Bible scientist Gérard Gertoux
concludes2 that the God of the philosophers did not incite worship
because it is impossible to enter into a close relationship with an nameless
God (’Elohim). Maimonides also pointed out that
יהוה is the personal Name of God, the Name to be
read in a different, more literal way (Shem
ha-mephorash – the clear or explicit Name, according to the Tannaim -
2nd century rabbis), which is different than all other
names or designations such as ’Adonai, Shaddai, or ’Elohim (divine titles with an etymology), because the Name
has no etymology. Maimonides, however, knew the Jewish problem about
pronouncing the Name, and that the rabbinic Jewish tradition said the
correct pronunciation had been lost. He then points out that the pronunciation
‘according to the letters’ is simply possible3 and that
according to Numbers 6: 23-27 pronouncing the Name in the Aaronic blessing
is even commanded. Here the Name is not used magically or supernaturally
(this happened among Jewish magicians and qabbalists,
and Maimonides opposed against it!), but for a spiritual purpose,
and according to Maimonides, that is legitimate and quite okay. Unfortunately,
this is unknown to many Jewish and also Christian theologians.
So the bottom line, according to Maimonides and Gertoux, is that ‘the
philosophers’ made God nameless and distant, and that this was expressly
not the intention.
The god of the philosophers
This raises the question of which ‘philosophers’ he was referring to.
And now an in-depth article by a Greek scientist gave me a lot of insight
on that. That is: Pavlos D. Vasileiadis, ‘Jesus, the New Testament, and the Sacred Tetragrammaton’.
He explains that around the beginning of our era, the Name of Israel’s God
was widely known by nearly all the nations around the Mediterranean. Then,
under the heading, “Which is the name of the God of the Bible?”
he says:
“According to the book of Exodus, when
God revealed Himself to Moses, He introduced Himself by a Hebrew
quadriliteral name, known as Tetragrammaton. This name is
transliterated in English as YHWH and occurs some 6,823 times in the Hebrew
Bible.”
Then he explains a few things about the culture and the image of God
that prevailed in the Roman empire in the first centuries of our era.
I carefully checked that, and came to the following insights:
The Romans were very impressed by Greek culture and religion. As a result,
culture in the Roman empire in the early centuries of our era was strongly
influenced by Greek thought and by Greek beliefs about religion and gods.
And the Greeks still had quite some ‘gods’/idols! Characteristic for the vast
majority of the ‘gods’ on the Olympus was that their behavior and thinking
was not so honorable. The most bizarre stories circulated about them. They
cheated on each other, made life miserable, and even tried to kill each other.
These idols of the Greeks were therefore not very impressive, although
according to Greek mythology they sometimes did special things. In addition
to all these idols, the Greeks knew somewhere in the distance also of a
supreme god. Plato, one of the most influential Greek thinkers, from the
fourth/fifth century BC, has written about it. From him comes from the idea
that not all those more famous Greek idols, about whom so many bizarre stories
circulated, were important, but that there was one ethical supreme god,
creator of heaven and earth. This ‘One’ was supreme in power and perfect,
because otherwise he was not a god, Plato reasoned. Only, so continued the
Platonic reasoning, because this god was so exalted, he was very far away
from us. As humans, we couldn’t really get to know him. Nor could he be
‘captured’ in a name or title. He was also too high to have contact with him
as mere human mortals, so he didn’t need a name or title. He was not available
to us and not involved in our lives. So this is what Maimonides meant by
‘the God of the philosophers’. At the most you could philosophize or reason
a little vague and distant about him – and that’s what those
Greek-thinkers did!
This was the image that the people who came to believe in Yeshu‘a and the God of the Bible in the early
centuries already had with them. It colored their reading of the Bible and
their thinking about God. The God of the Bible seemed somewhat similar to
the supreme god Plato had written about. Both were revered as Creators and
regarded as all-powerful and ethically very high. For example, the apostolic
creed and that of Nicaea taught that we believe in God the Father, the
Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. That image continues to this day.
Many theology books in which God is described also start with features such
as His omnipotence, His greatness, etc.4
Why do the creeds call precisely these two characteristics of God the
Father, His omnipotence and His being the Creator, and not, for example,
His love, His mercy, the fact that He is the living God – all quite
unique characteristics of the God of the Bible, which the Bible itself
often mentions. And why isn’t He simply called by His unique and glorious
Name YaHUaH? Further investigation shows that the latter is a story
in itself, which I would like to elaborate on in a subsequent article.
Now back to my first questions in this paragraph.
A Biblical image of God
The Bible paints a picture of God that is very different from the
image Greek philosophers had of the supreme god. In the Bible we see that the
God Who created the world is first and foremost a God Who is involved with us,
Who wants contact with the people He has created. He is a God Who IS Love
– Self-sacrificing Love. A God Who wants to be in a close and reciprocal
relationship with man. Such a love relationship includes vulnerability.
It includes that God makes Himself known. That our reaction to His love
does something to Him – it touches His heart.
About this also speaks the Name, the indication of His Identity, how He wants
to be known by us. That Name says He wants to be with us. When He made Himself
more closely known to Mosheh (Moses; we read about it in
Exodus 34; see also my discussion of that section in ‘What God
YaHUaH says about Himself – the Message of Exodus 34: 6-7’),
the first things He said about Himself were His glorious Name YaHUaH,
and that He is merciful and gracious, long-suffering, great in loving kindness
and faithfulness, entending loving kindness to thousands, forgiving iniquity,
transgression, and sin. More than His greatness and omnipotence, He mentions
these qualities. The Psalmists do the same, as they sing of His grace, His
mercy, His integrity, His faithfulness and His compassion toward us, humans.
In the coming of His Son to this world, as a helpless baby, He made Himself
very vulnerable (see also the parable Jesus tells in
Mat.21:33-41: the Lord who sent servants (prophets) to His tenants who
maltreated, sometimes killed them, hoped they would at least treat his own son
kindly, but no, they beat him to death). From the Bible story, we also
see that God placed the fate of baby Jesus in the hands of Joseph when God
warned him to flee to Egypt; had he not responded, Jesus had died with all the
other boys in and around Bethlehem in the great infanticide Herod committed
there (Mat.2; see also John Ernest Sanders, The God Who
risks - A theology of providence, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove
IL USA, 1998; ISBN: 0 8308 1501 5, p. 92-94). Theologian John Sanders
shows in many examples throughout his book that God YaHUaH chose not
to rule from His omnipotence, but to act from vulnerable love. Here the Lover
can be intensely hurt if His beloved does not answer this love but rejects
Him. The Bible therefore pays much attention to the emotions that God
experienced as a Great Lover, and compares them to the emotions that a man
experiences when his wife is either faithful or cheating on him. Emotions of
great joy when she is faithful, versus emotions of deep hurt, feeling
betrayed, jealousy and intense anger when she seeks love elsewhere.
That marriage metaphor, to which I have already devoted a whole series of
articles (so far, in Dutch only), is significant. Although He is infinitely greater and more
glorious than we can imagine, the God of the Bible is not ‘far away in heaven’,
unreachable and unaffected by us little people. No, Jesus wept at the sight of
Yerushalaïm and its inhabitants, whom He had loved
to cherish, like a hen her chicks under her wings, but who always rejected Him
(Mat.23:37). How we behave towards Him, touches Him
- very deeply!
Greek influences
This biblical image of God is therefore quite at odds with the previously
sketched image of god of the Greek philosophers, as was adhered to in most
of the Roman empire around the first centuries of our era.
However, when – after the first Christian persecutions –
Christianity gained ground in the Roman Empire, blending did take place.
With everything the Bible says about idols, people thought of and rejected
all those lesser Greek idols. But people were not aware of how totally
different the Biblical God was from the supreme god Plato and his people
had talked about. Plato’s images and ‘theologies’ were applied one-to-one to
the God of the Bible, even though they did not quite fit. As mentioned: we
see this to this day in some theology books, where not the
relationship-orientation and love of the God of the Bible are mentioned first
as His main features, but all features of the supreme god of Plato are the
first to be considered. Only after that will people come to speak about His
love for us humans and His involvement with us. And then people often switch
quickly to the Person of Jesus, who - in this view - did come near to us.
One then forgets that God YaHUaH has always been a God Who wanted to
be near to people.
Hence, in the Middle Ages, Maimonides spoke of the negative influence of the
philosophers, who made God nameless and distant, so that that mental image
of Him no longer evoked worship.
I find it remarkable that many worship songs that are being sung in
evangelical circles in recent decades do not have God the Father but Jesus as
the object of worship. As if not God the Father, but only Jesus is involved
with us and evokes our worship.
So we see that the image that the Greek philosophers (especially Plato) had of a supreme god influenced the image of
Christians in the first centuries of our era - consciously or unconsciously -
more than we usually realized. The God of the Bible is first and foremost
Love, a God of connectedness, Who seeks a close relationship with us,
people5 and makes Himself known personally through a unique Personal
Name. There, with the Greeks and Romans, that God became somewhat of a God Who
is far away. Admittedly, as the Creator of heaven and earth, very exalted,
ubiquitous and supremely powerful, but also somewhat distant, nameless,
inexpressible, impersonal, and therefore not completely approachable.
Only to a limited extent a God Who is strongly influenced by us, little
people, a God Who can enjoy the relationship with us, but Who can also suffer
pain, for example if we humans reject Him.
It goes without saying that this Greek image, through all the centuries,
and given new life in the last centuries by the so-called Enlightenment,
has - unconsciously - had a negative influence on our prayer life and on our
experience of daily close contact with God. From this background, it is
apparently more difficult to properly see our relationship with God well.
And thus we cannot give Him all the honor that is due to Him, which is
very regrettable.
Something has to change. We need to get back to basics. Abandoning the
image of God of the Greek philosophers completely. Seeing God YaHUaH
as He really is, actively present, in His enormous Love for us, and giving His
glorious Name the honor that is due to Him again. To learn to receive His
untold great Love and grace, so that He can completely renew our lives. Then
we will experience much more of His awe-inspiring active presence, and His
Life will flow and flourish again in us and through us.
Hallelu YaHUaH !
Notes
| 1 |
The glorious Name of God I represent here as accurately
as possible from the oldest Hebrew original, instead of replacing this grand
personal Name of The Most High by a common word, such as ‘Lord’. For more
background information see:
André H. Roosma, ‘The
wonderful and lovely Name of the God Who was there, Who is there, and Who
will be there’  , extensive Accede! / Hallelu-YaH! study, July 2009.
See also the other articles on the
significant Name of God, on the articles page here. |
| 2 |
See Gérard Gertoux, Did Jesus "Je[HoVaH]-salvation"
know God's name? Lulu, Aug. 2017, ISBN 978-1387138364 (also on Academia.edu), p.22: "(Maimonides') reasoning centred on the Name of God,
the tetragram, which was explained in his book entitled The Guide for the
Perplexed (Book I, §64), written in 1190. There he exposed the following
powerful reasoning: the God of the philosophers did not require worship only
polite acknowledgement of his existence, since it would be impossible to
establish relations with a nameless God (Elohim). Then he proved that the
tetragram YHWH is the personal name of God, that is to say the name distinctly
read (Shem hamephorash), which is different from all the other
names." |
| 3 |
In accordance with Josephus’ comment that The Name
consists of four vowels, the pronunciation then becomes like: IAUA. |
| 4 |
It is remarkable, for example, that the title אֵל שַׁדַּי - ’El Shaddai has been translated as The
Almighty, while a completely different translation is much more appropriate,
as I recently indicated in the article: ‘(19) What is the meaning of the Name אֵל שַׁדַּי
- ’El Shaddai’. |
| 5 |
From the beginning, in Genesis 3, His call has been:
Adam, that is, man, where are you? And throughout the entire Bible we find this
theme as a common thread that God seeks people and speaks to them. |
 |
References
John Ernest Sanders, The God Who risks – A theology of
providence, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove IL USA, 1998; ISBN: 0 8308
1501 5.
David Takle, The Truth About Lies and Lies About
Truth, Shepherd’s House, Pasadena CA USA, 2008; ISBN: 0 9674357 9
4.
|
