Proper Use of God’s Holy Name
Many things are said about the proper use of God’s name, in my studies of Philo and other books written by scholars. I have found the reason we have the words God, Lord, father, creator and other words in place of His Holy Name.
It is the same as honor we show for our parents, we do not call them by their proper name, but by terms of endearment like Mother, Father. This has been applied in our teaching of God’s commandments. In the place of the four-letter term for Jehovah they replaced with God, Lord Savior. Why because the Holy Name was only used by the High Priest one a year when he entered the inter chamber of the holiest place, to pray to God, for the people. This was known by the original writers of the Bible as we know it and everywhere the Holy Name was used, they replaced with God, Lord, Savior and such, proof is spoken of in the Holman’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ISBN 978-0-8054-9935-3
As you can clearly see God has no name other than what his title is, All Mighty, I am that I am, and so on and so forth. The names found in different portions of the Bible are only a name given by the society that wrote the fragments of scripture found in the cave of the Nag Hamadi. In the same manner as in our language we believe in Jesus our Lord and Savior in other culture. His name is pronounced [1200–50; Middle English < Late Latin Iēsus < Greek Iēsoûs < Hebrew Yēshūa ‘] Jesus pronounced “Haysoos.”
YHWH Known by the technical term Tetragrammaton (Gr., meaning “four Letters”), these are the four consonants that make up the divine name (Exod. 3:15; found more than 6,000 times in the OT). The written Hebrew language did not include vowels; only consonants were used. Thus, readers supplied the vowels as they read (as they do today when reading Hebrew newspapers). Reverence for the divine name led to the practice of avoiding its use least one run afoul of commandments such as Exod. 20:7 or Lev. 24:16.
Exod. 20:7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Lev. 24:16 And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.
In time it was thought that the divine was too holy to pronounce at all; thus, the practice arose of using the word Adonai: “Lord.” Many translations of the Bible followed this practice. In most English translations YHWH is recognizable where the word “Lord” appears in all caps or small caps---Lord.
In the course of the centuries the actual pronunciation of YHWH was lost. In the Middle Ages Jewish scholars developed a system of symbols placed under and beside the consonants to indicate vowels. YHWH appeared with the vowels from “Adonai” as a device to remind them to say “Adonai” in their reading of the text. A Latinized form of this was pronounced † “Jehovah,” “but it was not a real word at all.” From the study of the structure of the Hebrew language, most scholars today believe that YHWH was probably pronounced Yahweh (Yah’ weh). † (Note: Jehovah is a Latinized form of YHWH, but is not a real word at all!)
The most famous confession of the name Yahweh is found in Deut. 6:4-5: “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” This is a confession of God’s lordship over all, and that lordship calls for and demands total allegiance. This notion is central to both Old and New Testaments. If there is any central, organizing feature of biblical theology, it is that Yahweh is Lord. Though many forms of modern theology deny this, and though there has been some debate even among evangelicals about the centrality of divine lordship for salvation, the Bible is quite clear on this issue. When we turn to the NT, that lordship mantle is focused on Jesus Christ, especially in passages such as Phil. 2:9-11: For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow--- of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” See God; I Am Jehovah; Lord; Names of God. Mark Fountain and Chad Brand. Information taken from Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Revised and Expanded. © 2015 by B&H Publishing Group Nashville, Tennessee., ISBN 978-0-8054-9935-3
Now from Philo we are told.
XXXVI. (196) Accordingly, this man of mixed race, having had a quarrel with some one of the consecrated and well-instructed house of Israel, becoming carried away by his anger, and unable to restrain himself, and being also an admirer and follower of the Egyptians’, extended his impiety from earth to heaven, cursing it with his accursed, and polluted, and defiled soul, and with his wicked tongue, and with the whole power of all his vocal organs in the superfluity of his ungodliness; though it ought to be blessed and praised not by all men, indeed, but only by those who are most virtuous and pious, as having received perfect purification. (197) Wherefore Moses, marveling at his insanity and at the extravagance of his audacity, although he was filled with a noble impetuosity and indignation, and desired to slay the man with his own hand, nevertheless feared lest he should be inflicting on him too light a punishment; for he conceived that no man could possibly devise any punishment adequate to such enormous impiety. (198) And since it followed of necessity that a man who did not worship God could not honor his father either, or his mother, or his country, or his benefactors, this man, in addition to not reverence them, dared to speak ill of them. And then what extravagance of wickedness did he fall short of? And yet evil-speaking, if compared with cursing, is the lighter evil of the two. But when intemperate language and an unbridled tongue are subservient to lawless folly, then inevitably and invariably some iniquitous conduct must follow.
(199) O man! Does any one curse God? What other god can he invoke to ratify and confirm his curse? Is it not plain that he must invoke God to give effect to his curse against himself? Away with such profane and impious ideas!
It would be well to cleanse that miserable soul which has been insulted by the voice, and which has sued the ears for ministers, keeping the external senses blind. (200) And was not either the tongue of the man who uttered such impiety loosened of the ears of him who was destined to hear such things closed him up? Unless, indeed, that was done in consequence of some providential arrangement of justice, which does not think that either any extraordinary good or that any enormous evil ought to be kept in darkness, but that such should be revealed in order to he most complete manifestation of virtue or vice, so that it may adjudge the one to be worthy of acceptance and the other of punishment. (201) On this account Moses ordered the man to be thrown into prison and bound with chains; and then he addressed propitiatory prayers to God, begging him to be merciful to the necessities of the external senses (by means of which we both see what it is not proper to see, and hear what it is not lawful to hear), and to point out what the author of such a strange and unprecedented blasphemy and impiety ought to suffer.
(202) And God commanded him to be stoned, considering, as I imagine, the punishment of stoning to be suitable and appropriate one of a man who had a stony hardened heart, and wishing at the same time that all his fellow countrymen should have a share in inflicting punishment in him, as he knew that they were very indignant and eager to slay him; and the only punishment which so many myriads of men could possible join in was that which was inflicted by throwing stones.
(203) But after the punishment of this impious murderer, a new commandment was enacted, being reduced to writing; but unexpected innovations cause new laws to be devised for the repression of their evils. At all events, the following law was immediately introduced: “Whoever curses God shall be guilty of sin, and whoever names the name of the Lord shall die.”2 (204) Well done, O all wise man! You have seen that it was worse to name God than even to curse him; for you would never have treated lightly a man who had committed the heaviest of all impieties, and inflicted the heaviest punishment possible on those who committed the slightest faults; but you fixed death, which is the very greatest punishment imaginable, as the penalty for a man who appeared to have committed the heaviest crime. 2 Lev. 24:15.
Lev. 24:15 And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin.
Lev. 24:16 And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.
XXXVIII. (205) But it seems, he is not now speaking of that God who was the first being who had any existence, and the Father of the universe, but of those who are accounted gods in the different cities; and they falsely called gods, being only made by the arts of painters and sculptors, for the whole inhabited world is full of statues and images, and erections of that kind, of who it is necessary however to abstain from speaking ill, in order that no one of the disciples of Moses may ever become accustomed at all to treat the appellation of God with disrespect; for that name is always most deserving to obtain the victory, and is especially worthy of love.
(206) But if anyone were, I will not say to blaspheme against the Lord of gods and men, but were even to dare to utter his name unseasonably, he must endure the punishment of death; (207) for those persons who have a proper respect for their parents do not lightly bring forward the names of their parents, though they are but mortal, but they avoid using their proper names by reason of the reverence which they bear them, and call them rather by the titles indicating their natural relationship, that is, father and mother, by which names they at once intimate the unsurpassable benefits which they have received at their hands, and their own grateful disposition.
(208) Therefore, these men must not be thought worthy of pardon who out of volubility of tongue have spoken unseasonably, and being too free of their words have repeated carelessly the most holy and divine name of God.
Basically, it is a sin to use the most holy name of God, this is why everywhere in the Bible it was changed to Lord, God, Father, Creator and many numbers of other titles to be used. I pray for forgiveness of the Witnesses for their misuse of our Father Holy Name spoken only by High Priest in the inner sanction of the most holy place for Israel and their people’s prayers.
“Amen”
Sincerely,
Rev. Joseph & Michelle
God’s Faith in Man Church