Saturday, August 11, 2007
Matthew 6:9c Hallowed be Your name.
GOD OF OUR FATHERS
The name God has given Himself is the name JHVH or LORD, the great I AM, as explained in Exodus 3. In His revelation to Moses, God says even more. "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: 'The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations'" (Exodus 3:15).
God connects His name to His revelations to the three great patriarchs of the book of Genesis: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. By telling Moses that He is the God of the patriarchs, God is telling Moses that the time has come for God to keep the promises He made to the patriarchs.
So God is not the product of our own imaginations or something we make up based on what we hear from other people. God has revealed Himself to us in words and actions. In the days of the patriarchs God revealed Himself mostly by words. That is, He told Abraham what He intended to do for Abraham and his seed. Here is the first promise given to Abraham: "Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen 12: 1-3).
This same promise was repeated to Abraham, to his son Isaac, and to Isaac's son Jacob. When God told Moses that He should be called the God of these fathers, God was saying that He was about to do what He had said He would do for their fathers. He was about to make them a great nation and pour out His blessings on them and curse anyone who dared to be the enemy of His people. He was ready to bring about the existence of a nation that would prove to be a blessing for all the families of the earth.
He was going to set this nation apart from all others, so that they could be that nation from whom would come the Savior of the world. Jesus, born in this land to this people about 1500 years after God appeared to Moses, was a true descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. By looking at Jesus we learn to know the name of God. We learn to know who God is, and what He has done for us.
We dare never make of God's name a meaningless sound or slogan. We dare not think of God according to our own thoughts, guesses or imaginings. God must be connected to His revelation. God's name is not what we think about God, but what God has revealed about Himself. To keep God's name holy therefore means that we are to think and talk about God in a way that is consistent with the meaning of His name. We are to think and talk about God in a way that is consistent with what He has told us about Himself in His Word.
May God help us to hallow His name in this way.
