God Is Not God's Name
Introduction
God is not God's name. That's right. The God of the universe has a name, but "God" isn't it. "God" is what God is. "Human being" is not your name, "Human being" is what you are. You also have a name. Whether it is "Barbara" or "Ken" or "Tom" or "Debbie", you have your own personal name. So does God.
"And what is God's name?" Glad you asked. This writing will help you to recognize the answer.
Before we get too deep into things, here are some hints to get you started. You already know God's name. Oh, yes, there are many, many names people have given to God, but He/She picked one and only one for Him/Herself. God's
Real name is the same for all people everywhere. It matters not at all which religion or cultural heritage you are from! Truth transcends all boundaries we seek to erect. And no matter who you are or where you are from
, you have known this Name from the day your mind first began to awake. You see it and hear it each and every day.
The problem with God is not that He's so far away that we can't see Him. Rather, He is so close that we overlook Him. Our quest for God is just like fish in search of water. So don't be surprised if you start to recognize God's name everywhere.
Helping you do that is the purpose of this writing.
But God's
Real name is not in this document! How's that for strange? Most of this document is about God's personal name, which reveals His
Real name, but God's
Real name can't be written down in any book.
And that's all the introduction you get.
The Biblical Record
In the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religious/cultural tradition, spanning several millennia and the vast majority of the western world, there is only one acknowledged personal name for God. There are many descriptions (the almighty, the beneficent, etc) but only one personal name of God. The Islamic tradition speaks of the "100 names of Allah", but these are actually titles. The word "Allah" is Arabic for "God", which is English for the Hebrew word "Elohim".
In the entire world's religions there is no revelation or rationalization of God as clear and powerful as the Name that He spoke to Moses. And this personal name is directly related to God's
Real name.
In short, the Name God revealed to Moses is the most powerful religious truth in the world, a huge canopy under which all other religions and truths reside.
So enough already! What is this name?
Well, Moses asked the same question. You can find this in the Bible, in the Third chapter of Exodus.
- 1 Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro His father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and He led the flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
- 2 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and He looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.
- 3 So Moses said, "I must turn aside now, and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up."
- 4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, "Moses, Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am."
- 5 Then God said, "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."
- 6 He said also, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
- 7 And the Lord said, "I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings.
- 8 "So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perrizite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
- 9 And now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.
- 10 Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."
- 11 But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?"
- 12 And He said, "Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain."
- 13 Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I shall say to them, `The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, `What is His name?' What shall I say to them?"
- 14 And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, `I AM has sent me to you.'"
- 15 And God, furthermore, said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, `The Lord, 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-name to all generations."
So there you have it. God's personal name, as we translate its meaning in English, is "I am that I am." Here are some other ways it has been translated:
He who is
The self-existent one
He who is ever becoming what He is
Is-ness is is-ness
That may not seem like it says very much. That's because it is a statement of infinite truth.
God's name, the I Am, reveals the fullness of His nature. All of God's nature and attributes are embodied in His name. But at first it seems like air to a bird. "So what's the big deal?" I hope to be able to show you just how big a deal it is, and what it means for you.
To do that we're going to need a brief lesson in linguistics. This may seem confusing, but believe me, this is very important. It goes like this:
To
translate is to explain the meaning of one language using the words of another.
To
transliterate is to spell a word using the letters of another language.
"I am" is the English translation of the meaning of God's personal name.
The English transliteration of God's personal name is
YHWH.
The four Hebrew letters transliterated
YHWH are:
a Yod, rhymes with "rode", which we transliterate "Y"
a He, rhymes with "say", which we transliterate "H"
a Vav, like "lava", which we transliterate "W" or "V"
another He
Originally Hebrew (we're talkin' over 3000 years ago, folks!) didn't have any vowels, and was written right to left.
So let's summarize.
God's name, as written in Hebrew right to left:
Spelled left to right:
Transliterated into English:
YHWH
With vowels added: YAHWEH
Translated:
I AM WHO I AM
There. Now you have all the tools you'll need.
You've heard the saying, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Well, that's certainly true here. No matter what language you use, whether you translate, transliterate, or what direction you spell, YHWH's name means "I am that I am." And it directly points to His
Real name, which is the same in all languages.
So here's the structure of the rest of this writing:
First I'll discuss why this is so important. Just what does "I AM" tell us about
YHWH? What are we overlooking?