Sunday School - Back To Basics Part 2

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Sunday School - Back To Basics Part 3

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Well, Father, we do come before you thankful, Lord, for your blessing, thankful for this arrangement that you've given us this morning where we can gather and receive the imparted word which is able to make us strong.

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Lord, I pray that we would get a glimpse, a taste of who you are and what you've done and accomplished for your people.

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May you bless and lead our conversation by thy spirit. In Jesus' name we do pray, amen. Last week we talked about the

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Bible and we've seen the Bible kind of as obviously foundational as the authority to which we can now answer the next fundamental question, who is

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God? Any thoughts or questions from last week's lesson before we jump into this week's about the

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Bible? Anything that I missed, anything that you want to comment on? Well, if that's the case,

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I want you to go to Genesis 1. Quick pop quiz, how many books are there in the

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Bible? How many in the Old Testament? How many in the

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New Testament? How many authors? Forty. Over a period of how many years?

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1 ,500 years, give or take. Some estimates have it really low, like 1 ,200 years, others will have it up to 2 ,000 years.

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It really depends on where you place Moses, because everyone assumes that Moses was alive during what's commonly called the

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Second Kingdom, so Egypt has First Kingdom, Second Kingdom, Third Kingdom. These are dynasties, these are eras, epochs in Egyptian history, and everyone assumes that he was alive during the

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Second Kingdom. I would put him actually at the tail end of the First Kingdom, so I would actually say the Bible is probably around 1 ,600 years, from the writing of Moses to the writing of John, you probably have about 1 ,600, 1 ,700 years, but 1 ,500 is a good average.

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In Genesis 1 -1, we see verse 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and void, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the

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Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. In the beginning, what?

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God. Is there anyone who can make such a claim? God is the eternal, self -existing

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God, and today's lesson is going to be, who is this God? And the first thing we have to establish is that God is the

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Creator, so I want you to write that in there. The Bible teaches us that the God of the Bible is the Creator of everything.

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Now this is in a stark contrast, really, you have to put this into the context of the times. In the context of the times, in the

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Mideast, Eastern context, most religions and pagans didn't believe in a singular

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God who created all things, instead, everyone had a sort of pantheon of gods, they were polytheists, meaning many gods, or more than one, and Christianity and Judaism stem from an

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Abrahamic monotheism, one God, mono, one, theism, God.

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Yet in the context, all these different gods actually had a role in creation, and so you'd have one particular

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God who's in charge of making the waters, one God in charge of making the sky, one in charge of the stars and the heavenly host, there's a

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God for just about everything, even animals, there's a different God of different livestock and different kinds of animals, and these gods were the ones who were kind of in charge over those little areas of creation.

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But the God of the Bible introduces something revolutionary in the development of human religion, and it's that there is one singular

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God who created all things. That's, again, revolutionary. We don't think much of it because we grew up in a monotheistic context and we all agree and affirm that God is one, but yet this is earth -shattering.

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And really, it is earth -shattering also to some degree if you grew up maybe in a Mormon context, right? So one of the beliefs that is common in Mideastern ancient religions, as is actually common in the

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints or the Mormon Church, is that God didn't create everything out of nothing.

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Anyone know what the term, the scholarly term for that is? Yeah, ex nihilo. And so to create everything out of nothing, and the

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Bible teaches that God created everything out of nothing. Yet most pagans and even

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Mormons today believe that God didn't create out of ex nihilo, instead he created by organizing already pre -existing matter, right?

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So really, they don't have the power to breed things into existence, but that he just merely rearranges and organizes, you know, cosmic matter.

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That's not what the Bible teaches, Genesis 1 .1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

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Now, I would take this to be pretty inclusive of everything that there is.

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When he talks about the heavens, notice that he uses the plural in the

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Hebrew, Moses uses the plural here and it's translated in the plural, the heavens and the earth, singular earth, okay?

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That means, based upon also not only Old Testament but New Testament theology,

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Paul talks about the three heavens, we can then deduce that when Jehovah created everything, it's mentioning the heavens in the first, second, and third heavens.

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What do you think are the first, second, and third heavens? There's sometimes debate and controversy over that. How would you take that?

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What do you mean by that? Like the Mormons? That's right.

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I think you're on the right track, I would say that when Paul talks about the third heavens, you know, the first heavens obviously is the one that, it's the air around us, it's the stratosphere that we live under, and this bubble called earth, and then you go up there and you get to outer space, you know, a cosmonaut, a

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Russian cosmonaut, I think in one of the first cosmonauts to go into space in 1959,

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I think it was, he says that he had went up to the heavens and he saw no God, right?

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And so, and yeah, it's because he didn't go far enough. That's the second heavens.

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The third heavens is the dwelling place of God. And so, when the

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Bible uses the term God created the heavens, plural, I think it's referring to the vastness of not just the space in our stratosphere, but in outer space, and then of course, in the very presence of where the angels worship and unbroken chain of worship.

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And so, God is the one who created everything, the heavens and the earth, out of nothing. The God of the

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Bible is the creator of everything. Let's look at Romans chapter one, verse 20 for a moment. These are two verses, like if you're into creation, you need to like have this memorized.

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And it's Genesis one, obviously, and then Romans chapter one, verse 20, which says for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, both his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen and being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse.

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Speaking of God's eternality, and speaking of God's creative work, the scripture says that his invisible attributes of God is an invisible force or force, not the right term, but he is an invisible being and his invisible attributes though are clearly seen and perceived by that which he has visibly made, namely us, creation.

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Just like we see a building, we can deduce logically that there's a builder, there's an architect, there are people who came and built, so then when we look at the marvel of creation, we can properly deduce that there was a creator.

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And it is really so palpable that the scripture says that men are without excuse.

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What do you think that means? How then are men without excuse? How do you convince a blind man that there's a sun?

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You can feel it, right? But you can have a hard -hearted blind man say, I've never seen it, right?

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And I didn't see it, therefore it must not exist. How really pathetic but also sad that we base reality around our senses alone.

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And true, our senses are important, God gave us senses so we can determine whether things are real or true or not, but they are not the determining factors.

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This week, I was informed that I am also colorblind.

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I never knew this. Supposedly I'm colorblind with the color red. I said, what are you talking about?

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I see red perfectly. And so, for me, I've always assumed

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I knew what red looked like. Now, I don't know what's real anymore. And so, you can't base reality just upon your senses because your senses are still subject to the fall and the corruption of man and the sinful world that we live in.

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And so, we have to go based upon something even higher than our senses. And that's an authority that we can appeal to.

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And last week, we established the Bible as the authority that we appeal to because it's the Word of God. The Bible is not subjectively the

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Word of God, it is objectively the Word of God. There's no ands, ifs, or buts about it. And we can prove it, really, not just through logic, but most importantly, through the witness of the

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Holy Spirit. Like, that trumps everything. And so, we look at the scriptures here and it says,

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For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, both His eternal power, so God's power is eternal, unchanging, which is consistent with His nature.

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His nature is that He's an eternal being. And His divine nature, they've been clearly seen, they're being understood by what

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He has made, so that man is without excuse. Clearly, then, God is the creator of everything.

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Yeah. Yeah, which is as opposed to apologia, which is to make a defense.

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Now, about the God of the Bible, I want you to know that the God of the

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Bible is not just a, you know, in the world there's a lot of different ways in which people can describe the creator.

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One of them is kind of a theistic view, right? And the theistic view is very more, okay, there's a

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God, but He's kind of detached from reality.

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He's detached. He doesn't care. I think this is the God of Einstein. Einstein perceived if there was a

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God that He'd be kind of like the blind watchmaker, right? So, He'd be the one. He made the watch.

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He set it in motion and then He just forgot about it. And He's not interacting in the time and space that He created.

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And so this is commonly referred to as the Einstein theory of God, the blind watchmaker.

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And yet that's not the God that we find in Scripture. The God we find in Scripture is not an impersonal

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God. He's not a God that's detached from His creation, nor though is He dependent upon His creation as if He needed us or needed something from us.

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But rather, this God chooses to be a relational or personal

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God. And that's what I want you to write in the next part. The God of the Bible is a personal or relational God.

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Now, what are attributes of a person? Describe me some attributes of a person. Will.

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Okay. Now, break down that word more. What is will? We always talk about will, especially in the context of Calvinism, Arminianism, right?

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But what is a will? Sure, that's part of it.

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Anyone else have an idea or thought? Consciousness is required for will.

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Absolutely. But it's not necessarily one and the same. Will is to have the cognitive and physical ability to carry out desire.

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Okay? And so, in order to have a will, obviously, you have to be conscious. You have to have desire.

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There has to be – there are qualities that come with will, right? Just look at how we use it in modern vernacular and how we use it day -to -day.

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I will go to the store. I will not go to the store, right?

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So, will is the mental fortitude of making a decision and then having the ability to follow through with it.

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I will do this. I will not do that, right? And similarly,

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God is a personal God and he has a will. What other attributes do persons or personal beings have?

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What other attributes? Think of yourself for a moment.

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What do you got? Sure. Yeah.

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God certainly does have all those things in abundance. But more so, you know, let's just go real fundamental.

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Let's go to, you know, what's that saying? Tax brass or brass tax, whatever that means.

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What do you all have that's unique to you? That soul, right?

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But even more basic than that, your parents gave it to you. A name.

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DNA is true. You know, questionable whether God has DNA. But you have a name and your name is intrinsic to you.

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Now, it doesn't mean that you're the only one who shares that name. There's a lot of people who share the name Brian. But if someone, if I'm walking down the street and I heard my name called or you heard your name called, what would you likely do?

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Turn around and see. Especially you, you've got a kind of a rare name. So the rarer the name, the more you'll be looking around.

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But you have a name and your name is really a sense of, it's an attribute.

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It's an extension of you. It's how you identify. Now, God, the

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God of the Bible, has chosen a name for himself by which he chooses to be identified with.

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Okay? And the Bible reveals to us that name in Exodus chapter 3.

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If you can turn there. Starting at verse 13.

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Exodus chapter 3, verse 13. The Lord says, What a curious question.

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And it's curious because the Israelites knew they had a particular

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God. The Hebrews in Egypt even understood that they had a particular God. And they also understood likely what his name was.

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Because when you look at the Old Testament book of Genesis, the name appears often in that book.

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And it's even quoted as Abraham calling him that. But it goes beyond this.

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He's asking him, how do I know you're who you are?

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How do I know you're the God of Abraham? How do I know? How do I demonstrate this? How do

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I prove it? What's your name? Another way of saying it is, really, who are you?

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Because your name is so important. The first thing you do when you introduce yourself to somebody is you do what? Say your name.

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Hi, my name is. And then you receive their name. It's the first thing you do. And so God is establishing, kind of in this moment in redemptive history, reestablishing a relationship with his people.

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With his redemptive people. And he goes on to say in verse 14. And God said to Moses, I am who

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I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you.

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I am. I think in the Hebrew, don't quote me on this. I think it's, which can be translated as,

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I shall be. Really, more accurately it should be translated, I shall be what I shall be. Versus I am that I am.

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I am that I am really became catchy because of the King James Version. It translated it that way. The King James Version is responsible for a lot of the translations in modern

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English. Because it's the most popular English translation. It also set the tone for a lot of beautiful literature.

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So you know, most translations would prefer for Psalm 23 to say the Lord is my shepherd. Rather than saying

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Yahweh is my shepherd. Because the Lord is my shepherd is far more familiar. Far more poetic. Just sounds nicer.

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Rolls off the tongue nicer. And so we can blame the King James for a lot of translations. It's not a bad translation.

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Translating I am who I am or I am that I am. Is not a bad decision in translation necessarily.

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But it's not the most accurate. The most accurate rendition of the verbs that God uses of himself.

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Is I shall prove to be what I shall prove to be. That would be the most accurate way of looking at it.

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And so what God is communicating is. I'm the God who's going to show up.

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I'm the God who's going to prove to be who I say that I am. Right? And does it stop there though?

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So a lot of people would say. A lot of pastors make this mistake of saying. Well God's name is

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I am. That's God's name. No, it's not God's name. In terms of his personal name.

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You see what God is doing is. He's actually doing something quite brilliant. He's getting to the intent to the heart of Moses' question.

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Moses' question is not. How do I pronounce your name? That's not the intent of Moses' question.

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The intent of Moses' question is. Who are you and how do I know you are who you say you are? Okay?

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And God says. I shall prove to be what I shall prove to be. Or I am that I am. Okay? And he says.

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I am has sent you. Okay? And now this is a significant term obviously.

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Because Jesus later identifies as the I am. But verse 14 gives us more insight.

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As to the fuller extent of the answer that God gives to Moses. And God furthermore said to Moses. Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel.

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I'm reading from the Legacy Standard Bible version. And it says. Yahweh. The God of your fathers.

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The God of Abraham. The God of Isaac. And the God of Jacob. Has sent me to you.

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This is my name forever. And this is my memorial name.

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From generation to generation. What is the memorial eternal name of God?

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That he has revealed himself by? Yahweh. Or Jehovah. Either the

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King James. Psalm 83 .18 says. That thou may know that thou alone whose name is

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Jehovah. Art the most high over all the earth. Many English translations.

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The ASV as well. Popular translation in the turn of the 20th century. Was a popular

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Bible that used Jehovah. Obviously that name has been hijacked by the Jehovah's witnesses.

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And since then. Christians have actually ceded ground. Of the divine name to the cults.

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Instead of reclaiming that which is rightfully and properly ours. Which is the name of our God. Whether it be

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Yahweh or Jehovah. And so. God reveals his name as Yahweh.

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Jehovah. That's his eternal name. So what he does. Again it's quite brilliant.

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In responding to Moses. He gives the explanation. I am that I am is actually the verbiage.

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Of the meaning of the name Yahweh. So if you look at the name in Hebrew for Yahweh.

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It's four letters. It's often called the Tetragrammaton. Or Tetragrammaton. Which is a lot.

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That term Tetragrammaton is Latin for four letters. And there are four Hebrew letters.

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That make up the divine name. In Hebrew is Yud. He. Vav. He. Y. H.

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V. H. Okay. And so the Hebrew. Does something funny.

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Because there's no. There's no consonants. In the.

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Writing. Of ancient Hebrew. See. Or no vowels. There's consonants.

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There's actually no vowels. And so you have to insert the vowels. Into the consonants. And it's like trying to.

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Spell building. With only the letter B. You know. L. D.

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G. You know. It's very hard to. It might be difficult to try to figure out. Okay how do you actually pronounce this.

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And so over time. The Jews. Started to follow a tradition.

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Of not. Pronouncing the name. Because it was in their view too holy. And because they had a fear of blaspheming the name.

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They decide that they're just not going to say the name anymore. So every time that they would see the name. The Tetragrammaton. They would say.

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The Hebrew word Adonai. Which is Lord. Now guess what. We as Christians. We've followed in that same tradition.

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For better or for worse. Most of our translations. Where the word Yahweh. Or Jehovah appears.

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You'll see in big bold letters. The Lord. Capital L. R. D. And we do so.

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Following the Jewish tradition. That. That was started really.

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About. Second Temple period. Now I don't think that's a good tradition to follow. I think that that's irresponsible.

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I think we should translate. The divine name as best as we can. But I actually think that Yahweh is not even the correct.

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Pronunciation. Yahweh actually makes very little sense in Hebrew. I have a friend who's a

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Hebrew scholar. And he teaches at the University of Tel Aviv. I've had dinner with this guy. I've been on his podcast.

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He's not a Christian. He is a Karite Jew. You ever heard of a Karite Jew? Not a Karite Jew. Karite. And a

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Karite Jew is kind of like the Sola Scriptura of Judaism. They are Jews who follow only the

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Torah. Not the rabbinic tradition of the Talmud. And so they're really cool. They're really like.

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The more biblical Jews. Who follow the Bible more closely than the rabbinic Jews who follow the rabbinic teachings.

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And so this is a man who's a Karite Jew. And he has actually been a part of the translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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And he has found instances where you find the Tetragrammaton with the correct vowels. And the vowels, if you were to pronounce them, would be.

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The divine name would be pronounced Yehovah. Yehovah. Okay.

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That's how you'd pronounce the divine name. That's according to his scholarly opinion and the discoveries that he has made. Which then actually puts us in a really interesting spot.

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Because the Christian church for the last 600 years has been using a form of that in the name

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Yehovah or Jehovah. Okay. So the divine name, in my opinion, has actually never disappeared.

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It's always been around. Jehovah is not the most accurate way. Because why? The emphasis would be different because we use the

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Germanic translation of the Tetragrammaton with the word Jehovah. It's very Germanic. It's Jehovah.

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You know? The emphasis is on the ho part. Versus the

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Hebrew Yehovah. Va would be the emphasis. So. Which would then make a lot of sense because the name

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Jesus in the Hebrew. Anyone know what Jesus' Hebrew name is? Yeshua or Yehoshua.

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It's the same word for Joshua. Yehoshua means Yehovah, Yahweh is our salvation.

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So Yehoshua would make a lot of sense if the name was Yehovah versus Yahweh.

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Which makes very little sense in Hebrew. But that's neither here nor there. If you wanted to learn more information on that, you can look up Nehemia Gordon on Amazon.

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He's got some great books on the divine name. Quick side story with him.

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He's a very intelligent guy. He's a scholar. Top scholar. And he and I had dinner for about two hours when

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I lived in Canada. He was friends with my mentor. And so I got to spend time with him.

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And he said, all right, Pastor Brian. Why don't you give me your best reason for Yeshua being the

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Messiah. I said, all right, I've been waiting all night for this. So I spent about an hour just going through the scriptures with him.

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Proving and demonstrating from the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. And he's very contemplative, you know, going like this.

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Listening like a good Jew would, like a good rabbi. Listening. And he wasn't combative.

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He would stop me and ask me a question. And I would answer it. And then he would continue to be contemplative.

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And why don't you squash that like Jesus squashes the serpent's head. I don't know, just underneath you now.

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That's fine. There. And anyways, this guy goes on to say, after I give him this whole beautiful presentation of the gospel and of Jesus being the

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Messiah, he said, I'll tell you what. If Mashiach comes, which is

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Messiah, if Mashiach comes and it's Yeshua, I won't be surprised.

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And I was like, that's such a great admission, but it's not far enough, man.

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Like you need to know Jesus now. But he was very gracious and we had a great conversation.

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And he's had me on his podcast, which is actually a pretty big podcast, a couple years ago. And so I want you to write this down.

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The God of the Bible is a personal God. He relates to us in his revealed name. And you can put whichever name

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I just revealed to you. You can put Yehovah, Jehovah, or Yahweh. So now,

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I think there's something important about the divine name. And I don't think that Christians today do enough service or justice to the divine name, which is why actually my preferred translation of the

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Bible nowadays is actually the LSB, the new translation that just came out from the Master's Seminary. And they use the – they translate the

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Tetragrammaton as Yahweh. Now, although I don't think Yahweh is the correct pronunciation, I much prefer using up pronunciation than no pronunciation.

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The Lord is a substitution of the divine name. It's not a translation of the divine name, okay? It's like if we took the name

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Jesus and inserted the word rabbi. You probably wouldn't like that very much, would you? Because it's taking something away.

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It's taking something away that was originally there, okay? Now, no one disagrees that the

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Tetragrammaton was originally there in the Hebrew Scriptures. It would be a silly thing to say or argue.

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And I think also we do not make loud the heart of God when we follow Jewish fables and traditions and we insert them into our

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Christian doctrine, ecclesiology, and translations. And so I don't think there's any reason for us not to translate the

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Tetragrammaton in the Old Testament. And so I think there's a couple of good scriptural precedents for that, one of them being

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Isaiah chapter 12. Now, are you reading from the KJV, brother? Yeah. I want you to read Isaiah chapter 12, verse 2 and 4.

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2 and 4. Amen.

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So according to verse 2, you'll trust in the Lord who? Jehovah.

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And so the Bible clearly teaches us that the name Jehovah is of great importance and value. Verse 4 says we're to give thanks to Yahweh, call on his name.

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Not call on his name, not substitute his name, not erase his name, but to call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples.

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Now, there was a danger in Israel. And as this tradition was developing of substituting the divine name,

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God actually makes mention of it to his prophets. Because in Jeremiah 23,

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I want you to turn there, God is pronouncing judgment upon his people. And one of the things that's happening contextually here is during this time, the

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Israelites were beginning to worship Baal again, or Baal, Baal.

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And now do you know what the word Baal means? No. It means it's a

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Semitic word, which means Lord or Master. Okay? Now notice what the word of the

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Lord says in Jeremiah 23, verse 27. It says,

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I'm going to actually start in verse 26. How long is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy a lie, even these prophets of the deception of their own heart, who intend to make my people forget my name by their dreams, which they recount to one another just as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal.

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So notice what they were doing. They were worshiping other gods. In fact, they were forgetting God's name, and they were worshiping a god named

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Lord. Okay? We've got to be careful we don't fall into that same trap.

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Forgetting God's name, not mentioning his name. I'm thankful that we use the hymnal that we do, because a lot of our hymnals use the name

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Jehovah in our hymns. And again, I'm not a legalist when it comes to using one particular version of the divine name.

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If you want to use Jehovah, Yahweh, Yehovah, those are all great. Again, as long as you're doing your best to translate as faithfully as you understand and can the tetragrammaton,

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I think that that's admirable, and I think the Lord rejoices in that. But forgetting

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God's name totally and taking it out of our vocabulary, I think it's just shameful.

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And one of the reasons I really believe Christians don't use the name Jehovah, for instance, as much as they used to, is because of the

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Jehovah Witnesses. Because if you use the word Jehovah in a conversation with someone, the first thing that might pop up is, are you a

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Jehovah Witness? Right? And so we don't want to be associated with that, so we just don't use it.

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And I've actually documented this as a fact. Because the

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Jehovah Witnesses took on their name in 1931. When you read all the great preachers,

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Spurgeon among them, Spurgeon used the name Jehovah often in his preaching.

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And then you have around the 1950s a revision to the

34:57

ASV. The ASV and the King James were the most popular Bibles in the early 20th century. And the best -selling, most popularly used

35:05

Bibles. Then in 1951 you had a new translation called the Revised Standard Version, which was a revision of the

35:13

ASV. And that took out the name Jehovah completely and just substituted it with Lord. And the

35:18

King James uses the word Jehovah I think 7 to 12 times, something like that. The ASV used it 6 ,800 times.

35:24

But then you had more and more translations coming out that just didn't use the name Jehovah at all, or Yahweh even.

35:31

And it wasn't until the last 20 years that translations have really started turning back and starting to use the divine name again.

35:37

So the Christian Standard Bible of 2001 uses the divine name 70 times. In 2004 they came up with another edition, used the

35:44

Tetragrammaton as Yahweh 700 times. And then they unfortunately reverted. They came up with a new edition.

35:50

Now they have it zero times again. But there are other translations now like the LSB, which uses the name

35:56

Yahweh. And so you're kind of seeing a resurgence in Christians using, recognizing the divine name.

36:02

Now again, this is from the Master's Seminary, John MacArthur. John MacArthur uses Yahweh now. So I'm well pleased with that.

36:11

Any thoughts or questions on this aspect? This is the Legacy Standard Bible.

36:16

This is an update to the NASB. So it's essentially an NASB with some new modifications.

36:23

Actually, in my study of translations, and I have a lot of translations, this is probably one of the more accurate ones.

36:29

I've got some issues with it, but no one is perfect. Yeah, MacArthur has – his seminary has produced this new translation.

36:54

Yeah. Yeah. Mm -hmm.

37:02

Mm -hmm. Right. Yeah. I think ultimately it's coming to the point it's – they're replacing

37:11

God's name with a false god. Right? And so that's the pitfall that they're falling into, that idolatry and false worship apostasy.

37:20

And I'm not saying that the Christian church has fallen to that, but I think there's a clear danger in forgetting the name of our

37:28

God. God revealed himself to Moses, to the patriarchs, and chiefly through the personal work of Jesus Christ for a good reason.

37:37

And his name is Jehovah, Yehovah, Yahweh. And it's good that we remember that he is a personal being.

38:20

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Back in those days, a name actually meant something.

38:28

And Elijah – anyone know what the word Elijah means? Eli and Jah.

38:36

It means my God is Jehovah. That's what the word – Eli means

38:42

God, Jah is a certain form of the name Yahweh or Jah or Jehovah. So, beautiful.

38:49

So, again, for that bullet point, the God of the Bible is a personal God who relates to us in his revealed name. You could put

38:55

Yahweh or Yehovah, Jehovah or Yahweh. Any of those would work.

39:02

Any questions on that? That one's a pretty important one because we want to understand that God is personal. Now, if we have an impersonal

39:08

God, then it would understand – and I feel like there's a lot of Greek influence that got into Christian theology pretty early because you have in about the third, fourth century

39:16

Christian fathers who were saying that God doesn't have a name. And it's like, yeah, that's

39:24

Platoism. That's not what the Bible teaches. Clearly, God has a name.

39:31

But the Greeks had a lot of things weird, especially the Greek Christians, in relation to understanding the

39:36

Hebrew roots of the New Testament and understanding the name of God. So, for instance, the Tetragrammaton.

39:42

Have you guys ever seen a Tetragrammaton? What it looks like? Google search it real quick.

39:47

I was going to have a presentation for us, but last week the thing wasn't cooperating, so I wasn't going to – yeah.

40:06

Yeah. Well, there's a great reason.

40:18

So, it's kind of a long story, but let me just show you guys this real quick. So this is the

40:25

Tetragrammaton in Hebrew. This is what's called proto -Hebrew, which is the more ancient form of Hebrew.

40:34

This is the Hebrew likely that was used during the reign of David, right?

40:41

So during the kings, the reign of the kings. This is the Hebrew that was used. Then they went into exile, and when they came back from exile, the

40:49

Hebrew script began to look a lot more like the Babylonian script. So Hebrew script began to look like this.

40:55

So this is what Hebrew looks like today as well, give or take.

41:01

So these are all the Tetragrammaton and the three versions of Hebrew, proto -classical, and then post -Babylonian

41:11

Hebrew. So there's four letters, Yud -Heh -Vav -Heh, and you actually read from left to right.

41:19

So Hebrew, you don't read from right to left. You do it the opposite way, left to right.

41:26

So the reason why the Jews stopped pronouncing is actually twofold. There was two things that coincided.

41:32

The first part was – FYI, I was going to write a book on this, and I probably still will because I did a lot of research on this with Nehemia Gordon's help.

41:43

In around the second temple period before Jesus, you see the beginning of tension between God's people and the divine name.

41:55

How do we know this? Well, there's a series of documents called the Septuagint. You know all about the

42:01

Septuagint, right? And so the Septuagint is a Greek translation of the

42:06

Hebrew Bible. So now Greek is becoming the language of the world.

42:12

It's like English is today and probably how Mandarin will be in a hundred years. So the

42:19

Jews, as they were translating the Bible into Greek, they had a real fundamental debate as to what do they do with the divine name.

42:28

Because they believe that God spoke Hebrew. They believe that the words that God spoke to Moses was in Hebrew.

42:35

Therefore, they want to preserve the Hebrewness of the God of Abraham. And so they left it untranslated.

42:43

They would actually put in these letters into the Greek, which is essentially leaving it untranslated.

42:51

Now what happened is that people couldn't really pronounce that, especially if you're primarily a

42:57

Greek speaker. In Greek, this actually looks like Greek numbers or Greek letters.

43:04

And unfortunately, it's not very good Greek letters. The Greek letters – and people did this.

43:10

They tried just translating it, treating these Hebrew letters as if they were Greek. And I kid you not, the result of how you pronounced it was pee -pee.

43:22

I kid you not. You know the pi from math when you do math? It looks very similar to the

43:29

Hebrew. So they started calling it pee -pee. It doesn't have the same connotation to us today, obviously.

43:38

But even then it was kind of silly, right? It wasn't really working. And so later versions of the

43:47

Septuagint actually begins to translate that to – there's no equivalent for Yahweh or Yehovah in Greek.

43:56

So they start to use the word Adonai or kurios in the Greek, which is for Lord.

44:03

So that's where you begin to see that tradition. Coinciding also with the fact that some of the

44:09

Jews, as the pharisaical system was starting to coalesce and become a thing, felt like God's name is too holy for us even to utter.

44:18

So we're just not going to utter it. Like we're going to know what it is. So like there's a fine tradition of rabbis knowing how to pronounce it.

44:25

They just won't do it. They'll only pass it down from rabbi to rabbi, but they won't ever verbalize it amongst the congregation.

48:17

God is almighty. Genesis 6, verse 3 is the first time we see in the

48:22

Hebrew the word El Shaddai. El meaning God in Hebrew.

48:29

Shaddai is what we often refer to as almighty. Now there's some mystery behind the name or the term

48:38

Shaddai in Hebrew. Because we actually don't know exactly what it means. We're pretty sure it means almighty, but we think it actually probably means more than just almighty.

48:51

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's some different renditions, and those will not be bad renditions. Because it may not necessarily mean exactly almighty.

49:02

But that's certainly connotation with it. And the reason why we actually use almighty is because in the Septuagint it uses the

49:07

Greek term pankator, which is the Greek word for almighty. So it's close enough.

49:14

So we use almighty. But the point is clear. There's no one greater. There's no one mightier.

49:21

From him is all power. To him is deserving of all power. He is the epitome of power.

49:32

He's self -sufficient in the greatest way of using that term.

49:38

Because none of us is truly self -sufficient. If you were left on a desert island with no food, no water, you would not be self -sufficient.

49:47

You are dependent upon other things to sustain you. God is not dependent upon anything to be sustained.

49:54

He is literally self -sustaining in the truest sense of the word. Pretty incredible.

50:01

Our God's awesome. I mean that's amazing. Again, Revelation 1 .8

50:06

also uses that term, the almighty, in the Greek being el pankator, the almighty.

50:19

Todo poderoso. Or strength.

50:29

Poder. The name poder is to have strength. Depends on the adjective and the verbiage of it.

50:35

But it certainly means to – I think a more accurate way is the one who has all dynamic power. I think that would be a pretty accurate way of describing the word.

50:45

He's the one who has all the power. All the energy stems from him. He's self -generating in that sense of his eternal power and will.

50:54

It doesn't come externally. It is generated from himself. So now we're talking really – we're getting kind of a metaphysical discussion about who

51:04

God is, which is good. But God is also a lot of other things.

51:10

And this is just a short list. There's so many things that we can list but time will not permit.

51:16

God is love. So I want you to put that as well. Love is the next one.

51:23

We know this. 1 John 4 .8 says God is love. Not that God has love.

51:29

That's true too. He has love for his people. Not that God is loving, although that is true as well.

51:35

But why are those things true? They're true because from him stems true love.

51:42

He is love. He's the epitome of love. He is an attribute of his nature, which again is at direct odds with those who believe that in a theistic view of God, that he's just a

51:52

God who made everything and then just sits back and lets everything play out according to the laws of physics that he put in place.

52:00

But no, he's a God of love. He interacts with his creation. He stepped into his creation in the personal work of Jesus Christ.

52:07

And finally for today's discussion, God is holy.

52:13

He's holy. Now the word holy means to be cut and separate.

52:22

One of the other reasons I really love this translation is I think the only translation actually in English to actually accurately translate a certain word in Hebrew.

52:34

So in the Hebrew, in many translations it says when God says, I will make a covenant with you.

52:40

I will make. That's not the Hebrew. You know what the Hebrew says? The Hebrew says,

52:46

I will cut a covenant with you. I will cut. Okay?

52:51

So it's like we would use that in today's vernacular as well. Hey, let's cut a deal. Right? And so now that's significant for two reasons.

53:00

When God says, I will cut a covenant with you, is because he's saying twofold. Cutting is a, it's like an adjective that stems from the word holy.

53:12

So the connotation is separation. Okay? I'm going to cut. I'm going to separate you.

53:17

In that covenant making process, you're going to be separated. Okay? That's what it means to be in covenant with me, is that you're going to be separated from the world.

53:25

Okay? And another part of it is it actually is pointing towards the action of that covenant, which is circumcision.

53:33

The cutting of the flesh. And those are the two very real thoughts in the

53:39

Hebrew. And so the LSB is the only translation that accurately translates that consistently throughout the

53:45

Old Testament, where it says, I will cut a covenant with you. It's really interesting. It's really cool.

53:52

And that's the connotation there is holiness. And God is himself holy. In fact, we see in Isaiah 6 -3.

53:59

We see in the year that King Uzziah died, the prophet Isaiah said, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

54:06

And he saw the seer from the church singing, holy, holy, holy is Yehovah, Yahweh of hosts.

54:13

The whole earth is filled with your glory. Okay? Pretty amazing. Now, you have a triad of holies there.

54:21

Not once, not twice, but three times pointing towards the holiness of the

54:29

Holy Trinity, of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh, the singular

54:35

God of hosts. Pretty amazing. And so holiness is an attribute of God, which is why in the

54:41

Garden of Eden, God had to cut, sever ties with man, with humanity, because they had become unclean.

54:50

It is opposed to his nature. God cannot dwell in the presence of the wicked because it will consume them.

54:58

And because of his love, he separated himself from humanity. So really, it was an act of love that Yahweh did when he separated himself from the

55:07

Garden, because if not, he would have consumed humanity, and they would have been destroyed. Yet, it was also in his holiness that he had to separate from humanity.

55:20

And so, here we get a glimpse into who God is.

55:25

And there's so much more we can say. There's so much more we can study. But I hope this just at least whets your appetite, gets you thinking about what the

55:32

Bible teaches about who God is, maybe some of the metaphysical implications of who God is as to his attributes in nature.

55:38

Any other thoughts or questions in regard to today's lesson? Yeah. I shall be what

55:51

I shall be. I will be that which I will be would be an accurate translation as well.

55:59

And of course, the one that is mostly used in English translations following the tradition of the

56:05

King James is I am that I am or I am who I am. I shall prove to be what

56:16

I shall prove to be. Yeah. That's right.

56:22

Any other thoughts, questions? In what language?

56:34

I don't know. Maybe. Probably. Now, that's the name, what the name

56:45

Yahweh means. The name Yahweh literally means I shall cause to be.

56:57

Again, proving the self -existence of God that all things stem from him. So, it's intrinsic into his very person and name that he's the creator, the source of all things.

57:09

So, they're pretty cool things. So, that's a great question.

57:18

So, in Psalm 110, you have a verse, verse one says the Lord, that's Yahweh, that's capitalized in our

57:24

Bibles, said unto my Lord, Adonai. So, the second Lord isn't referred to as Yahweh.

57:31

Okay? So, that's very important there. It says the Lord, Yahweh, Yehovah, said to my

57:39

Lord, Adonai, in the Hebrew, sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies a footstool. Jesus takes that verse,

57:45

I think it's in Matthew 21 or 22. And he says, who is David's Lord? Right?

57:51

And he proves himself to be the Lord over David because the Lord said to my Lord, this is

57:57

David, a Davidic Psalm. So, David called the Messiah his Lord. Okay?

58:02

And so, that was an important point. That text in itself doesn't correlate with Jesus being particularly

58:09

Yahweh because it doesn't call him Yahweh. Though it is a – obviously, it is a claim of divinity there because to be at God's right hand means that you are sharing the throne of God.

58:23

It means you're a co -occupant of the throne room of God, which only God can rightfully do.

58:39

So, there are – in the Hebrew, there is Adonai, which is usually a title of divine reverence.

58:47

And then there is Adoni, or Adonai. And Adoni literally means like my

58:53

Lord, like how we would use in Spanish the word Señor to describe someone who is older or worthy of respect.

58:59

Just like the titles of my Lord are used in English culture to refer to someone who has ownership.

59:08

And so, that's how the Hebrew would differentiate. Now, it's not true. There's Unitarians who say – and Jews who say that Psalm 110 uses the word

59:18

Adoni. Now, it's true that some manuscripts do. The oldest manuscripts that we have show that it's

59:23

Adonai. Yeah, yeah. Because then they would understand that the word

59:29

Adonai really is kind of a divine title, not a divine name. That's really important. The last thing I'll say.

59:35

The divine name is important because it's a name. The word Lord is not a name.

59:40

It's a title. The word God. Like if you ask an average American, really biblically literate, most

59:45

American Christians as well, you ask them, what's God's name? They'll say, God. No.

59:51

Wow. It's like your name is not boy or girl. Those are titles. Those are descriptions.

59:58

As a matter of fact, the word God is very generic in the Hebrew, very generic. A lot of things were called gods.

01:00:06

Moses was called God. Did you know that? Exodus 7 -1. Moses is called

01:00:11

Elohim. He's God as unto his people. The word God is used of Baal.

01:00:18

It's used of other deities. It's used of Samuel. That's right. It's used so many times in so many places.

01:00:25

It's a very generic word. Because you know what the word God actually means in Hebrew? Does anyone know? It means strong one.

01:00:34

So it actually means a little bit more than that. That's just a generic term. Like it literally does mean strong one.

01:00:41

But it's more than that if we get to the etymology of the word. It means the one who's strong enough to make the rules by which you live by.

01:00:49

So whoever was strong enough to make the rules, that was God. So that's why the judges are called gods in the

01:00:57

Old Testament. Psalm 82, we see a reference to other gods because they were making rules by which people were living by.

01:01:06

And so whoever has authority to make rules, strong enough to make rules, that person was considered a god.

01:01:12

And so the word God is just really generic in the Hebrew. More generic than we actually think.

01:01:20

But the Bible clearly sets apart Yahweh, Yehovah, as a unique god. That's why he's called

01:01:26

El Shaddai, the Almighty God. He's also called El Elyon, which is the

01:01:32

Most High God. He's given all these other titles to show that he's not just like other gods. He is the

01:01:37

Most High God. He is the Almighty God. And so it's distinguishing him from other deities.

01:01:45

So pretty fun stuff. Let me pray. Father, I thank you, Lord, for your goodness. Pray, Lord, your blessing over the rest of our service.

01:01:50

We're so thankful, Lord, to be here. We do pray for our brothers and sisters who are not well today.

01:01:55

And we do pray, God, your grace and your blessing over them. And we do pray, God, that you'd be glorified in our time together.