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God's Name(s)
I am a trinitarian enthusiast, personally, but I do realize that God's name is not "The Trinity." It bugs me to hear it invoked in worship because it is a conceptual title applied to God, but not God's name. However, another thing that also bugs me is when people suggest that God has but one true name...
I am a trinitarian enthusiast, personally, but I do realize that God's name is not "The Trinity." It bugs me to hear it invoked in worship because it is a conceptual title applied to God, but not God's name.
However, another thing that also bugs me is when people suggest that God has but one true name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is truly one of God's names, but it is one of two, not one of one. God revealed to His chosen people another name long before Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In Exodus 3, God reveals his name as "I AM WHO I AM," sometimes written as YHWH or spelled out (with some trepidation) as Yahweh. Jesus connects himself, names himself "I AM" (and thereby his father and their Spirit) in Mark 14 and all over John. Exodus says very plainly that this is God's name, and that God is to be remembered by this name forever. Let us Christians, ever slipping on the slope of Marcionism, remember this as well as the Jews do!
God's Name
The Holy Name in Exodus declares that God is a relational God, for Israel. God is the one true God unlike the ethnic/national deities of Israel’s neighbors and the enfleshed deity enslaving Israel in Egypt. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is the One who rescued Israel from bondage in Egypt and delivered her safely to the Promised Land. God is the gracious God who chose Israel, saved Israel, and gave Israel the Law to reflect her relationship with Him.
Christ Jesus reveals that same God as Father-Son-Holy Spirit, a relational God who relates within Himself and who wants to draw all people into His life and love, that all may be rescued from bondage to sin, death, and Satan and delivered safely to a completely new Promised Land.
I agree that the Holy Name should be left unspoken, contra the Jerusalem Bible. Yet, we Christians can and must speak the Name that is above every name, the One who reveals the God who relates as Father-Son-Holy Spirit, the One who in Holy Baptism has claimed us as beloved daughters and sons.