NAMES OF AUTHORITY

Hugo McCord

Four letters make up God’s personal name, as he announced it from the burning bush to Moses: “YHWH” is “my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations” (Exodus 3:15. Those four letters are called the “tetragrammaton” (Greek for “four letters”).

The great meaning wrapped up in those four letters God explained to Moses: “I AM THAT I AM,” or “I AM BECAUSE I AM,” or “I EXIST BECAUSE I EXIST” (Exodus 3:14). Our brains cannot comprehend what all those words mean. Helpful are the words that Moses later wrote to God: “Even from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2). Also helpful are the words that YHWH spoke later to the apostle John:

I am the Alpha and the Omega [the A and the Z], ... who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty (Revelation 1:8).

Reverence for the sacred name was prescribed when God wrote with his own “finger” (Exodus 31:18) on a rock:

You will not lift up the name of YHWH your God in shawe’ (“falsehood,” “worthlessness,” “vanity”), for YHWH will not hold him guiltless who lifts up his name in shawe’ (Exodus 20:7).

And the psalmist wrote that the name of God is “holy and reverend” (111:9).

One man, apparently in a fist fight, “blasphemed the name, and cursed” (Leviticus 24:11). God commanded that he be stoned to death” (Leviticus 24:14). This sad incident caused the Israelite people to think that the name YHWH was too sacred to be on human lips, and to this day they always substitute for YHWH the word “Lord.”

However, God never taught that his name could not be spoken, only that it not be misused. Eve rejoiced to say, when Cain was born, “I have obtained a man with [the help of] YHWH (Genesis 4:1). Her grandson Enosh called “upon the name of YHWH” (Genesis 4:26), as did Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and others (Genesis 14:22; 15:2; 24:27; 26:28; 27:27; 28:16; 30:24; 31:49). The psalmists often exhorted with the words halelu Yah, “Praise Yah” (111:1). Several psalms are called “Hallelujahs” (111-113, 146-140).

While Jesus was on the earth, only the Father’s name, “YHWH,” was to be hallowed (Matthew 6:9) and glorified (John 12:28). Before Jesus left the earth, he taught his apostles that another name would be supreme: “Until now,” Jesus said, “you have asked nothing in my name” (John 16:24), but in anticipation of his receiving “all authority” in “heaven and on the earth” (Matthew 28:19), he said, “Ask, and you will receive” (John 16:24). “I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. I will do anything you ask in my name” (John 14:12-14).

The replacement of authority from the divine name to Jesus’ name is scheduled to last until “the end of the world” (Matthew 28:18-20), during which time “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father” (John 5:23).

In further preparation for Jesus’ leaving this world, he instructed the apostles that “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47). But the preaching in Jesus’ name was not to begin during the ten day period between his ascension (Thursday, May 18, A.D. 30) and his coronation in heaven (Sunday, May 28, A.D.30) as “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:16; Acts 2:30; Hebrews 1:8-9): “Tarry in the city,” he commanded, “until you are clothed with power from above” (Luke 24:49), while you “wait for the Father’s promise” (Acts 1:4).

The “Father’s promise” was fulfilled when the apostles were “baptized in the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5; 2:1-4) on Sunday morning (May 28) at “nine o’clock” (Acts 2:15). Then was delivered the first complete gospel sermon, the first time that the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus were preached (Acts 2:31), the first time that the Father’s name was replaced by the Son’s name.

This was done after thousands of convicted listeners, stabbed in their hearts because they had crucified Jesus, interrupted the sermon, crying out to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, “Men and brothers, what should we do?” (Acts 2:37).

Then, for the first time in the history of the world, sinners were told in what name they were to repent and be baptized: “in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38). This was the first command from the one now clothed with “all authority in heaven and on the earth” (Matthew 28:18). The baptisms were to be done “into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19), the Trinity, the triune Godhead, the theotes (Colossians 2:9), but by the authority now transferred to “the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38).

Since that momentous occasion, when “about three thousand souls” were baptized (Acts 2:41), “whatever” anyone does, “in word or in deed,” must be done “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17), not in the divine name of God, the Tetragrammaton. All prayers are to be offered, not in the name of YHWH, but “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20).

Right after the first baptisms “in the name of Jesus Christ,” Peter healed a crippled man in “the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 3:6). Soon Peter repeated that “remission of sins” is in no “other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein” sinners can “be saved” (Acts 4:12). “Philip went down to the city of Samaria” and “proclaimed the good news about God’s kingdom, and the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 8:5, 12). Peter went to Caesarea preaching “that everyone who believes in” Jesus “receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43).

From the day of Pentecost, May 28, A.D. 30, to “the end of the world” (Matthew 28:18-20), the Father has willed that his name be replaced by the Son’s name, giving “him a name that is above every name, so that every knee--of the ones of heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth--should bend at Jesus’ name” (Philippians 2:9-10), the name “far above ... every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the world to come” (Ephesians 1:21).

We can understand why universal authority was placed in the name of Jesus when we remember (1) that he, like the Father, is “the Alpha and the Omega” (Revelation 1:8; 21:6; 22:13), and (2) that he, like the Father, is “the first and the last” (Isaiah 41:4; 44:6; Revelation 1:17; 22:13), and (3) that he, like the Father is “the beginning and the end” (Revelation 21:6;

22:13).

But when the Father said that “all things are subjected” to Jesus, “it is clear that the one who subjected all things is the exception” (1 Corinthians 15:27). Consequently, when Jesus “has subjected all things to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him” (1 Corinthians 15:27-28).

Therefore, at the beginning of “the world to come” (Ephesians 1:21), when Jesus “has placed all enemies under his feet,” including “death” (1 Corinthians 15:25-26), Jesus will deliver “the kingdom to God, even the Father” (1 Corinthians 15:24).

Then in heaven, after “the earth” is “burned up” (2 Peter 3:10), Jesus will take second place. All authority will return to the Father, and in heaven will be heard songs of praise to the Father calling attention to his “memorial” name: “Alleluia” (Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6, KJV); “Hallelujah!” (ASV); “Praise Jah, you people!” (NEW WORLD TRANSLATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES); “Halleluyah!” (JEWISH NEW TESTAMENT).

The Hebrew halal means “praise” and “jah” or “yah” are contracted forms (JH or YH) of the divine name, JHVH or YHWH (Psalm 68:4; 104:35; 105:45; 106:48, and in many other psalms). Consequently, “in the world to come” (Ephesians 1:21), when the present “preeminence” (Colossians 1:18) of Christ’s name gives way to his Father’s name, praise to God’s eternal name will be resumed.

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