I think we will look in more detail at God’s primary names, the names we first looked at two blogs back. We talked briefly about His name Jehovah, Yahweh and Adonai. We can now talk about them with a little more detail. JEHOVAH is God’s redemptive name…Isaiah 12:2 says this, “The Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song. He is also become my salvation. “ After sin entered the human experience, it was Jehovah who sought the sinner…as Redeemer, Jehovah revealed His holiness and His just demand for righteousness on the part of His creatures. Let’s look at Adam ad Eve, the parents of us all. Understand, their sin did not take God by surprise…I Peter 1:20 tells us God had the salvation plan already worked out…I Peter 1:20 tells us His plan was formed “before the foundation of the world.” He knew they would not obey Him even though He gave them instruction NOT to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” or they would die. They ate and they died, spiritually. I often wondered where Adam was when Satan was taunting Eve. Was He there? I ask that because God held him responsible and made him the head of the human race, and God said Adam sinned knowing what he was doing. But, the plan was prepared and God spoke it to them and us in Genesis 3 Jehovah was prepared to redeem His now fallen children and their descendants. You may wonder as I have, why did He create them knowing what they were going to do. The rest of Scripture seems to indicate that He wanted a people of His own, to love and care for and to worship and fellowship with Him. He was willing to do whatever needed to be done to make that happen. BUT…He wanted them to love and obey Him of their own free choosing, because they wanted to. He is a wonderful Father.
Up until the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God made Himself known to Israel as ELOHIM…THE STRONG, FAITHFUL ONE. But to Moses and the Jews in Goshen, He was JEHOVAH-ELOHIM, Maker, Redeemer, used to speak of His relationship with man. He has the RIGHT of being our creator, He has MORAL authority over us, He has the right to govern us, power over our human relationships. His rights over us are shown clearly in the book of Ruth…Boaz showing himself to be Ruth’s kinsman-redeemer, as God is our kinsman-redeemer. We have a responsibility to be obedient to Him and respond to Him in the way He has laid out for us in Scripture.
JEHOVAH-YAHWEH, the holiest of God’s names. This is the great “I AM.” This is the self-existent One. Israel spent 400 years in Egyptian bondage. While there, most if not all of their knowledge of God was gone. When He led them out to the wilderness, He took them to Sinai where He had them encamp and He taught them who Jehovah was. He taught them that He was Holy. He gave them over 400 laws that would govern all their living conditions. He taught them they were to be a special, separate and peculiar people. He was a Holy God who hates sin, all through all the Old Testament, He could not compromise, He must judge, using His name to Israel, Jehovah. In His dealing with Pharaoh He was their Redeemer and Creator. He had to judge Pharaoh and He did! He laid down he moral law to them, telling them the price of disobedience was judgment as laid out in the law. Ad they became more and more disobedient, God allowed them to be overrun by their enemies and taken into captivity, their cities destroyed and temple in ruins.
ADONAI is a beautiful name, it means Lord, Master, Sovereign and primarily refers to Him and His relationship to us as our Master. We CAN become His bondservant…our choice. In bible times a servant who had served his term, had come to love his master and desired to stay with him and would stay voluntarily. In exchange for his loyalty, obedience and service, the Master would provide him with everything he needed. This is the relationship Moses had with God as did Joshua, calling Him Adonai. The Master had the right to expect absolute obedience and in return made every provision for the bond-servant. Studying the Names, attributes and character of God is like examining a fine, exquisite diamond. The various hues and points are all beautiful but when you put them all together, you see a jewel so fine it has tremendous value to the one to whom it belongs. So it is with our God!
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