Dr. Ron Sumners
February 22, 2004
If you tell me a person’s name, I will probably have a good idea in which decade they were born. My parents’ generation had Minnie, Alma, Lena, Wilbert, Albert and Ernest. I don’t know anyone over thirty named Tiffany, Amber or Jason.
Names have their seasons, their periods of popularity as surely as other fads and enthusiasms. Most of us were given our names because it sounded good to our parents or it was a family name that our parents wanted to continue.
This was not the case with people in the world of the bible. Names were chosen for more than passing popularity or their aesthetic value or to please a relative. History was sometimes written into a name, as with poor Ichabod (1 Samuel 4:21-22) or Mahershalalhashbaz (Isaiah 8). Names were sometimes changed in the course of a faith journey, so that Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah, and Jacob became Israel. Names were important to the Jews and to other ancient people because they were thought to represent the character of the person. To know someone’s name was to know their soul.
In our day we’re almost frantic to get on a first-name basis. Service and social clubs insist on it. If he were around today some would want to call John the Baptist “Jack.”
We’re still hostage to names. When I was a young pastor and addressed a respected older pastor as “Doctor,” I felt good when he said, “My friends call me Ralph.” On the other hand, if you have just earned a new title, you are gratified when a friend says, warmly and with a smile, “Good morning, Doctor!” or “Congratulations, Madame President!”
Companies that are ready to introduce a new product invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in market research and in think-tank deliberations to come up with a name they hope will sell their product. Even in our day of a more casual style, we admit that names are important. We resist when a business or an agency seeks to reduce us to their name? Is God like the person who says, “I’m not Ron to you, I’m Dr. Sumners”? If God is that insecure, the universe has a problem.
There must be more to this Commandment than the protection of divine right or religious protocol.
The issue is the waste of power. God’s name is powerful. It is more powerful than we can ever fully understand. Because God’s name is available to us, so is the power of that name. If we use His name in vain, in a fashion contrary to its character, or in a trivial fashion, perhaps even using it in a curse, we have wasted it. God has been generous in revealing His name to us and making Himself available to us. What could be a greater insult to that generosity than to use His name carelessly or crudely? And what could be more destructive of our own welfare than to misuse such a wonderful gift?
We misuse God’s name in more ways than we realize. Cursing is the one we are the most acquainted with. It is the most dramatic and offensive misuse of God’s name. Most curses are quite casual. They are not meant malicious, they are simply the vocabulary of the simple.
Profanity is the language used by a person when their brain misfires. Most of the time, cursing is the speech of those too lazy or too morally bankrupt to learn to express themselves in proper language! People damn things all the day long in the name of God without realizing what they are saying. If they understood, if they were not so simple, they might realize the magnitude of the power they take so lightly.
Some curses are serious and intended, when someone really does intend to damn another and gives God the directive to do the damning! Talk about getting too big for our britches!
I can’t really say a good word for cursing because it is aimed at destruction and because it so dramatically misuses God’s name. Nevertheless, in a very perverse way, a curse, where we invoke the name of God, recognizes the power of God. No one ever curses in a trivial name. “Ron Sumners damn you” doesn’t carry much impact. No one uses historical figures to swear by. No one says, “Benjamin Franklin damn you!” He was a great leader and patriot, but having the power to curse is out of his league.
Those of you who make a habit of cursing ought to stop. It is stupid and beneath you. And one day God may ask you what gave you the right to command Him to send people to everlasting hell. When you ask God to damn a person that is exactly what you are doing.
But cursing, as bad it may be, is not the chief peril for most of us. We are more likely to sin by using God’s name casually or inappropriately. The issue may be all the greater for those of us who are religious, because we use the name of God more often. Familiarity doesn’t necessarily breed contempt, but it does breed familiarity.
This frightened the devout ancient Jews. They feared that even when using God’s name religiously, they might slip over the line into familiarity. As a result, they came to feel that the name of God, YHWH (Yahweh), was better not used at all, except on the Day of Atonement, when the high priest spoke it in the Temple. They believed that the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple were specific places where God’s name would dwell, and they were therefore cautious about using it in other circumstances and settings.
Why is this true? God’s name is God’s very person, and to use God’s name disrespectfully or unworthily is to treat God with disrespect.
The devout found beauty and strength in God’s name. Isaiah said, “Your name and your renown are the soul’s desire” (Isaiah 26:8). The prophet Jeremiah warned the people concerning their misuse of the name, “But you have abused my name because you broke your agreement” (Jeremiah 34:16). God’s name is so much His person that when we break our contract with God, we dishonor the Name.
If you and I enter into a contract and sign our names, and I violate the agreement, I dishonor my name. I also show contempt for your name and for you by breaking the statement to which both of us have signed our names.
The Jews believed that the name itself was powerful. They believed that the spoken name of God carried the authority and power of God.
No wonder, then, that when persons in the Old Testament were visited by God’s representatives, they wanted to know their names. After Jacob had wrestled with the stranger and his own name had been changed, he wanted to know the stranger’s name (Genesis 32:29). When God appeared to Moses at the burning bush and commanded Moses to deliver the Hebrews from slavery, Moses wanted to know His name.
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, Jesus began with a name for God, and then with an attitude toward that name: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matthew 6:9). By giving God a relational, family name, Jesus indicated the nature of our approach to God. God is a person and is personal; the name says so. We have been given the right to have a relationship with God.
Jesus said that whatever we ask in God’s name will be granted (John 16:23-24). Jesus meant that we should pray in a spirit consistent with His character and will. To speak otherwise and then add the name of Jesus would be blasphemy. We might pray for the death of an enemy and do it in the name of Jesus. This would be taking the name in vain because it is out of the character of Jesus. He said to love and do good for our enemies! To pray in Jesus’ name is to assume Jesus’ will and purpose.
It is also clear that Jesus intended to add to our authority in prayer. How do we approach God? Not on our own authority, but in the name of Jesus.
In the community where I grew up everyone knew everyone. When I was a boy, often I would be approached by an adult who would say, “I don’t know which one you belong to, but you have to be a Sumners’ boy.” I had instant status because of the name. My value and worth today have a great deal to do with the name I bear “Christian”. I bear the name of my Savior.
On the Day of Pentecost, the people asked Peter what they should do. Peter told them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. When Peter and John came upon a lame man at the temple gate, they commanded his healing in the name of Jesus (Acts 3:6). And then, as a result of this healing, the apostles were brought to the authorities for questioning. The first question addressed to them was “By what power or by what name did you do this?” (Acts 4:7). Peter was probably sharper and more direct than the authorities expected, for he advised them that the name of Jesus was the only name under heaven by which persons might be saved (Acts 4:12).
The Apostle Paul carried the matter still farther. In his letter to the Philippians (2:9-10) he said: “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.”
The early Christians had no doubt about the Name. It was their song, their assurance, and their life-and-death confession. When they spoke it, it was often at peril to their lives. The name of Jesus became the theme of their lives.
Unfortunately, we seem to have lost this glory. We no longer respect the majesty of God’s name. If some take the name in vain by cursing, many others of us do so by neglecting its wonder and power.
If you and I were to truly honor God’s name, we would honor the principles of that name. When I understand the power that is in the name of God, I will elevate my opinion of the name which was given to me by my parents, and by the church. It is a wondrous thing to have a name and it should never be defaced by improper living. I never want to bring dishonor to the names I carry: my family’s, my church’s or my Lord’s!
When I understand the power that is in the name of God, I will be respectful of the names that I give to others. How dare I call someone by a derogatory name, when God carries a name and ordains the very business of names? No wonder Jesus warns that when we call another person (Raca) “empty-headed” or “fool,” we are in danger of hell fire (Matthew 5:22). Names are serious business, because it is by the name of God, and of Christ Jesus, that we enter into the possibilities of our faith.
I have also known people who took the name of the Lord in vain by using it too easily. Some people toss around the name of Jesus as if it were a casual possession. Some Christians call upon the name of the Lord too little, some use it like a magic charm, thinking that if they add the name of Jesus to a petition they have God’s blessing to anything they ask. So, they reason, if I want a new Mercedes automobile, all I have to do is pray for it in Jesus’ name and it is as good as mine. These folks don’t seem to understand that if they were truly praying in the name of Jesus they wouldn’t be praying for such things in the first place.
But there is a middle ground, a proper place, and we shouldn’t allow an extreme to keep us from putting God’s name in the proper place.
More than a century ago, Lydia Baxter and William Doane put this love for Jesus into a hymn: “take the name of Jesus with you, child of sorrow and of woe; it will joy and comfort give you, take it then where’re you go. Precious name, O how sweet! It is the hope of earth and joy of heaven.” The style of the hymn is different from the stark directness of the third Commandment, but the sense of reverence for the name of God is the same. It is simply stated positively.
We all have a name. And with that one name we enter into some measure of the dignity, the majesty, the beauty, and the power of the One Name that is above every name. That is why the Name of God should never be wasted, whether by profane or casual use, or by neglect.
The third Commandment is our divine invitation to enter into the name of God and of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
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