Jesus and the name (Phil 2 + Isa 45)

Short teachings from Hillcrest Church further exploring Sunday's teachings.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, how are you doing? Uh Tim here, and we are diving deep into the 10 words of life. I am uh I'm away at a little prayer study retreat for a couple days, and so uh yeah, um enjoyed a chance to spend a little more time thinking about uh 10 words of life. Wanted to pick up on the, you know, in the last episode on Monday, uh we looked at the gift of the name, and we looked at how um uh Yahweh God revealed himself to Moses, Exodus 3, Burning Bush. And then of course on Sunday we talked about how uh something similar happens, um Exodus 334, God saying his name uh in Moses' presence. I wanna I want to move forward now because I think this has some implications uh for the New Testament. So interestingly, um by the time we get to the New Testament, uh first century Judaism um uh respected God's name and uh to such a degree that they they uh did not say it out loud. The the divine name, uh Yahweh, I mean in Hebrew, um we don't even know exactly how it was pronounced uh in uh the uh Old Testament times. It's four consonants, Yod He, Vav He. And so um it was said that only the high priest would say the name only once a year on the Day of Atonement. And so they just in Jesus' day, they just didn't say uh God's name. And um it was uh it was like, hey, if saying it wrong, uh if there's any chance of ever being disrespectful to this name, the better thing is just we're just not gonna say it at all. We're gonna treat it with absolute reverence. And even today, if you read uh Jewish writings, a lot of times they'll it uh like they won't write the word God out, they'll put G-D even in the writing uh as a as an act of kind of reverence. Um so you see this reflected in the New Testament uh all the time. So, you know, one way uh, for example, in the book of Matthew, um, I don't know if you've noticed that it talks about the kingdom of heaven versus other of the gospels talk about the kingdom of God. Well, Matthew is reflecting this uh more Jewish stance. You don't even you don't even say the kingdom of God, you say the kingdom of heaven. Uh and that, of course, heaven is uh is a reference to God without actually writing God out. Um and so we we see this uh happening throughout the New Testament. It appears uh that you know Jesus and the disciples observed this Jewish practice of not saying God's name. Um, you know, even Jesus himself often referred to God as Abba. Um, you know, Jesus isn't going around referring to Yahweh, he's referring to God as Abba Father. Uh, and so he's not using this this divine name. Um so it's not that they didn't talk about God, they talked about God in all sorts of ways. Uh, just they would they would avoid uh speaking this. One of the uh one of the ways that they would often refer to God is they would use uh they would use the word uh the Lord. Um uh in uh in Hebrew it's Adonai and in Greek it's Kyrios. So Adonai, Hebrew, Kyrios, Greek, both of them we translate to Lord. Interestingly, um at they now this is just kind of one of these fascinating little rabbit trails. So uh Jews over the centuries, as they copied the Hebrew scriptures, and this is like post-Jesus into the Middle Ages, um, the original Hebrew scriptures only had consonants. So the divine name only had Yo-He Vavhe. And they didn't to to protect so that no one would say it, what the these copyists would do, the Jewish copyists, they wouldn't write what uh, well, maybe even back up a second. So the the original Hebrew scriptures they only had the consonants, that's kind of how Hebrew worked. Um as biblical Hebrew was being spoken less and less, the copyists started putting vowels in there so that uh the community would remember how to say these things. But when they came to the divine name Yodhe Vavhe, they didn't want to put the right vowels there because they didn't want people to say it. And so what they did is they put the vowels for a different word, namely Lord, and in Hebrew it's Adonai, they would put those vowels on the Yodhe Vavhe. And uh when um Christians got the Hebrew scriptures and started translating straight from the Hebrew, like in the Middle Ages, um the Reformation, they uh uh they combined the original consonants with the added vowels, and you know what word popped out? Uh Jehovah. That's what popped out because the the Y becomes like a J sound, and uh the Jehovah the uh is from the Adonai, Jehovah is yeah, anyways, um it was a though the those consonants and vowels were never meant to belong together. The those Christians translated the Hebrew didn't understand it, they created the word Jehovah. Rabbit trail. Alright, back to where I was going. Um so uh in the New Testament, um the word kirios, Lord, is what gets used regularly to kind of replace, to refer to God. Now, interestingly, this uh pops up all the time in the later New Testament because what we see is um this term, the Lord, beginning to get used to refer to Jesus. And here's where we get into the conversation about, you know, sometimes I'll hear, you know, people say, you know, the Trinity, this was invented later on, or um, you know, those early Christians they didn't really think Jesus was God. I mean, you know, Jehovah's Witnesses, there they have a whole theology built that Jesus wasn't really God. And in fact, one of the early um, one of the early heresies of the church, Arianism, was built around the idea that Jesus wasn't really God. But we get into these places, like Philippians 2, where it's clear that that um Jesus as um having the divine identity is clearly being taught. So Philippians 2 is one of the uh most famous places. Uh Paul's writing to the church in Philippi and says you should have the same uh mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing, uh he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, and being made in human likeness, uh, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place. So you've got to be thinking, highest throne in heaven, and gave him the name that is above every name. If you are a faithful first century Jew, what is the name that is above every name? There's only one name that is above every name. It's the name of the Lord, Yodhe Vavhe. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue can acknowledge that Jesus Christ is what? Is Lord, is kirios. Is, and kirios is of course the stand-in for Yahweh to the glory of God the Father. And even this language that at the name Jesus, that at the name Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, even that language Paul is pulling from Isaiah. So if you flip to Isaiah 45, Isaiah 45 is all about how there is only one Lord and God of the universe. He's um Isaiah is talking about the idols of Babylon. Um, but listen to this from Isaiah 45, uh, verse 18, I am the Lord. Remember, L-O-R-D there, behind it is Yahweh, but oftentimes it would be the Jews would say, Adonai. I am the Lord, there is no other. Uh verse 21, there is no God apart from me, uh, righteous God and a savior, there is none but me. Verse 23, before me every kneel will bow, and by me every tongue will swear, and they will say, In the Lord alone are deliverance and strength. And so he's pulling on that language from Isaiah 45, and he's applying it to Jesus. And he's pulling specifically from a passage that talks about there is only one Lord and God, and he's applying it to Jesus. And so uh what this, and this is why, this is where you know, because Christians, Christian theology has to wrestle with is because what Paul is saying is the incarnate Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified Jesus of Nazareth, and the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth, somehow the divine name Yahweh rests upon him. He is part of the Yahweh God that we know through the Old Testament, and he is part of Yahweh without being a second deity. There is one God, Paul is saying, and we know this one God, both through the Father and through the Lord Jesus Christ, and we will come to understand through the Spirit as well. Um extremely powerful. Uh Philippians 2, the name resting on Jesus. Grace and peace.