Читать книгу Principles of the Kingdom of God - Kenneth B. Alexander BSL JD Deacon - Страница 7

In the ancient Near East, great significance was attached to personal names, for they revealed character and identity and signified existence. The revelation of a divine name and its continued use were of substantial importance for a people.

Yahweh. The most important name for God in the OT is the tetragrammaton YHWH, which occurs about 6,800 times, usually pronounced ‘Yahweh,’ though the known pronunciation was lost in the postexilic period. Due to the increasing sanctity attached to the name and the consequential desire to avoid misuse YHWH, the pronunciation was prohibited in Jewish culture. The title Adonai (Heb., ‘My Great Lord’) was pronounced in place of the tetragrammaton.

It is believed that God’s name YHWH was given to Moses before he journeyed to Egypt to deliver the Israelites. “Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will 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?” 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.’ ” “I am that I am” is usually translated as meaning YHWH the “I am” God. “God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘The LORD, the 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-name to all generations” (Exodus 3:13-15). In written texts the vowels of Adonai were combined with the consonants YHWH to remind readers to pronounce Adonai instead of Yahweh. Ancient Hebrew had no vowels in its alphabet. The incorrect hybrid, ‘Jehovah,’ arose from Christian misunderstanding in the late Middle Ages. The respect for the sanctity of the personal name of God is reflected in modern Judaism. If God has a true name it is this one. It indicates that God is a God of today, right now and is always ready to move to accomplish His will.

Yahweh Sabaoth. This compound name, ‘Lord of Hosts,’ which occurs 279 times in the OT, depicts God as the commander of armies. Originating in holy war, the expression became a polemic against astral cults: Yahweh rules the heavenly armies. The name was eventually understood as a plural of intensity, ‘Lord Almighty,’ thus neutralizing the existence of the celestial gods. The Septuagint (LXX, The Greek Translation of the Old Testament, hereafter LXX) translates this name ‘Lord Almighty.’

Elohim. is associated with “glory”. Occurring about twenty-five hundred times in the OT, Elohim is one of three common generic names for deity in the OT. The term is plural and on occasion means ‘gods’ (e.g., Exod. 20:3), but most often it is a plural of majesty for Israel’s ‘God’ (e.g., Gen. 1:1). However, as we will see below, it is plural for a reason since we find out that God is three persons--Father, Son, Holy Spirit

Eloah. The second generic name for deity in the OT is Eloah (Heb., ‘God’), though it is found only fifty-seven times, the great majority of which occur in Job. The poet of Job may have used this generic word for God to avoid the specific Israelite conceptions of covenant and salvation history associated with the name Yahweh. Job, a part of wisdom literature, prefers to speak of the universal dominion of creation theology.

El. Occurring more than two hundred times in the OT (including compounds), El (Heb., ‘God’) is the common Semitic name for deity in ancient Near Eastern cultures. Every divine being was properly designated by this generic name.

El Shaddai. (Exod. 6:3), El Shaddai (Heb., ‘God, the One of the Mountain[s]’) was worshiped by the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The LXX translated Shaddai ‘Almighty.’ Thus many English Bibles translate El Shaddai as ‘God Almighty.’

El Elyon. (Heb., ‘God Most High’), originally a compound for the high god El, was worshiped in Jerusalem before David’s conquest (ca. 1000 B.C.). In Genesis 14, Melchizedek is the priest-king of Jerusalem who blesses Abraham in the name of ‘God Most High, Maker of Heaven and Earth,’ the ‘God who gave Abraham’s enemies into his power. After the Israelite takeover of Jerusalem, the El Elyon tradition is associated with Yahweh (Ps. 47:2-3).

El Olam. (Heb., ‘God of Eternity’) After this religious center was incorporated into Israelite religion, the title came to designate Yahweh (Gen. 21:33).

El Berith. (Heb., ‘God of the Covenant’). In Joshua 24 the Deuteronomic historians placed the covenant renewal ceremony at Shechem following the conquest of Canaan. The covenant, known as the Old Covenant, was an agreement between God and His people before Jesus Christ.

El Roi. (Heb., ‘The God of Seeing/Divination’) was a localized deity of a sacred spring (Beer-la-hai-roi) whose water sustained Hagar in the desert and inspired her to see a divine vision (Gen. 16:13-14). Hagar was the mother of Ishmael, Abraham’s first son borne by his wife’s servant. Some scholars equate this story this story with Yahweh, who promises Hagar a son (Ishmael) who will have many descendants.

¯Adonai. (Heb., ‘My Great Lord’) is a plural of majesty derived from the singular Adon (Heb., ‘lord’), a title of respect used to address a social superior (e.g., king, husband, slave owner).

Names of God In the New Testament.

The names used by NT authors to refer to God reflect the fact that the NT was written in a Greek-speaking culture primarily on the basis of a tradition and terminology inherited from the OT and Judaism as mediated by the Septuagint (LXX). This tradition was significantly modified both by the early church’s understanding of the teaching of Jesus and by its understanding of the person of Jesus as the definitive expression of God.

God: The most common word for God in the NT (1,318 times) is the Greek word theos (‘god’), used often by the LXX (more than 4,000 times) primarily as the translation of the usual Hebrew word for God, elohim. This word was also used by the LXX for the pagan gods, just as it was the standard word for the gods of the Greeks and Romans of NT times. Although the NT writers sometimes use ‘god’ for the pagan gods (e.g., 1 Cor. 8:5) and on rare occasions apparently apply it theologically to the glorified Christ (e.g., John 20:28), the vast majority of cases refer to the God revealed in the history of Israel and in the person of Jesus. Thus, ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ is a frequent designation (e.g., Rom. 15:6).

Lord: In the OT, the chief title and representative name for God was the individual and personal name ‘Yahweh,’ translated kyrios (Gk., ‘Lord’) in the LXX and ‘the LORD‘ by several English versions. This name was used by OT authors more than 6,000 times, compared to about 2,500 times for elohim, ‘God.’ The NT continues to use ‘Lord’ for God (about 100 times), primarily in quotations from the LXX (e.g., Mark 1:3; 12:11; Acts 2:34) and in set phrases such as ‘hand of the Lord’ (Luke 1:66). The vast majority of the 719 occurrences of kyrios (‘Lord’) in the NT refer to Jesus, however, usually as the exalted Christ (e.g., Acts 2:36; John 20:28). Thus, the two most common OT names for deity, ‘God’ and ‘Lord,’ are used in the NT not only for God but also (though rarely in the case of the word ‘God’) for Jesus as the exalted Lord of the church’s faith. A much less common word for ‘Lord’ in the LXX, despotēs (Gk., ‘lord,’ ‘sovereign,’ ‘master’) is also used in the NT both for God (Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; Rev. 6:10) and for Christ (Jude 4; 2 Pet. 2:1).

Father: Jesus referred to God as Father as the preeminent part of the Holy Trinity. He said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel. “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes” (John 5:19-21)

‘The God of the Fathers’: This significant OT title for God, as well as the more particular phrase of the same meaning, ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,’ is found in the NT only in two Gospels (Mark 12:26; Matt. 22:32) and in the book of Acts. As in the OT, it emphasizes the continuity of Israel and that the God of present experience is the same as the God revealed to the ancient patriarchs. Luke-Acts, which is especially interested in pointing out this continuity, thus uses the title four times (Acts 3:13; 5:30; 7:32; 22:14). In Paul and the literature dependent upon him, this title is replaced by ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 11:31; Eph. 1:3, 17; Col. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:3). Again the Father is emphasized.

The Almighty: The LXX had translated two of the Hebrew expressions for God in the OT, which probably meant ‘God, the one of the mountains’ (RSV: ‘God Almighty’) and ‘Yahweh of Hosts,’ with the more philosophical and formal pantokratōr (Gk., ‘Almighty’).

Alpha and Omega: These are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet and thus represent God as the Beginning and the End, the source and goal of all creation, and thus the only God. The phrase itself is not found in the OT, but the basic formula from which it is derived is found in Isa. 44:6 and 48:12. In the NT, only the author of Revelation uses this name for God (1:8; 21:6); he also applies it explicitly to Jesus Christ (22:13; cf. 1:17; 2:8).

The Holy One: This OT title for God, especially in Isaiah, explicitly refers to God only once in the NT (Rev. 16:5). It is used of Jesus in Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34; and John 6:69. In 1 John 2:20, the reference may be either to God or to the exalted Christ.

God, which will be used herein as the name for the Almighty, is a three-part spirit being (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Each part has a separate function but with all the parts being completely ONE in the carrying out of their business. As we have seen above, Jesus did only those things which He saw his Father do. Jesus was the actual representation of the Father on the earth. All the power used by Christ came from the Father the creator of the heavens and the earth. Jesus made this clear: “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?  The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves” (John 14:7-11).

The first evidence in the Bible that God is a multi faceted being comes in Genesis where God said: “Then God said, “Let Us make  man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:26). The emphasis is on the “US”. Like God, man is also a three-fold being-Spirit, soul and body. “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).