[Gary Petty] We look at the many different way that God reveals Himself to us…sometimes we can get so busy – so involved in other things – that we miss ways that He reveals Himself to us. He reveals things to us in nature itself, because He is the Creator. He is the Designer. We, sometimes, even miss the point the way He reveals Himself to us in the scripture. And there are lots of ways – the stories that are told, the way the Bible talks about Him as God – the Father and Jesus Christ – the way it talks about how His Spirit emanates from Him and actually brings us into relationship with Him.

One of the ways that God reveals Himself in the scripture is through the many names and titles that He uses. Now, I’ve given sermons over the years just going through different names and the different titles that are used in the Old and New Testament, and what those names and titles reveal about God, and about Jesus Christ. Now we would not know God as Healer – well, we can see what He does, but we wouldn’t know the power of it in the same way – if we didn’t know Him as Yahweh Rapha – the God who Heals. We wouldn’t understand Him quite the same, maybe, unless we know what Adonai meant – that He is our Lord – or El Elyon – the Most High God, who is over everything, in charge of everything, possessor of heaven and earth. There are dozens of names and titles in the Old and New Testament given to both God, as Father, and Jesus Christ. And all those names are very, very important.

In Hebrew, the word that is translated name into English is pronounced shame. And so, someone’s shame – of course, it’s a different meaning; it’s not shame in English; it means someone’s name – but shame, in Hebrew, was a person’s name, but many times, it wasn’t just what they were called. A person’s shame revealed something about them. And this is especially in reference to God. But, you know, we even used the word name that way. We’ll say, “Well, that person has a good name,” meaning they have a good reputation. Or, it’s used, sometimes, in the Old Testament, to mean the memory of someone – you know, “their name will be lost forever.” People will lose their memory of them. Sometimes it’s used to talk about a person’s goodness or how famous they are. We’ll say the same thing. We’ll use the word in English the same way. We’ll say, “Boy, that person is a big name!” or “That’s a big-name star,” as opposed to someone…you know, if we’re watching a movie, someone down in the credits that played the part of the guy that died in the first 30 seconds of the movie. But the guy with the big name, he’s a big-name star. So, we use the word name in English very similar to the way they would use word name, but, in many ways, the person’s name – and it’s not always that way, because we’ve lost the meaning of some of the Hebrew names – of what people’s names were in the Old Testament. But names did have, or were supposed to have, some connection to the person.

Now, my name is Gary. It means mighty warrior. That is not why my parents named me Gary. We name people differently today for different reasons. The reason they named me Gary was my father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all named Grover Cleveland, and they were called GC – you know, by those initials. And my mother said, “I’m not going to name that baby Grover.” So Gary was picked. So the meaning of my name has absolutely zero relationship to me, although I’m sure glad it wasn’t Grover.

But the idea that the name contains some information about the person is very important. And that’s really true when we see the way God reveals Himself – when He reveals Himself in names and titles. And I say “names and titles”…sometimes you can’t tell the difference. There are places where there are words that we would consider a title that God actually says, “My name,” or “His name.” His shame is…this reveals something about Him and it’s actually one of His names. So names and titles actually become very important.

We’re also told that how God reveals Himself in His names is important. I mean, we’re told not to take God’s name in vain – one of the commandments. And in the model prayer, Jesus said to hallow – or make holy – God’s name.

Now, we’re continuing this series of sermons on holiness and it will take two sermons to cover this, because next time I want to talk about, specifically, how do we hallow God’s name? How can we hallow God’s name? What does Jesus mean by that? See, God is holy. His name is holy. How in the world do we make something…you know, by our actions…? Well, that’s a very important concept and we’ll have to go through that next time.

Now, when we study these names of God – like I said, we’ve done it in many sermons over the years – and in Bible studies – study them in the original languages and in our languages. What do they mean in the languages we speak? And there are people in this congregation here that speak three or four different languages – come from a very divergent background. But there’s another issue I want to talk about, because it comes up on a regular basis. And it’s something that started back in the 1920s, 1930s. Interestingly enough, it gained momentum in what is called The Church of God, 7th Day. Now, we trace our history, as an organization, way back through The Church of God, 7th Day – eventually clear back to the 7th Day Baptists.

In The Church of God, 7th Day, in the 1920s and 1930s, there were some Sabbath keepers that start what is called the Sacred Names Movement. Now the Sacred Names Movement today is a large body of people – I say “large;” it’s not enormous, by any means, but it’s a divergent body of people – who have formed different organizations – different churches – and many times they’re just independent groups or independent teachers that aren’t part of any group – that believe in various forms of what is called the Sacred Names Movement. It’s a very divergent group. They believe a lot of different things. But at the core of what they believe is – and this is what I want to talk about today – that in order to keep God’s name holy, you must say the name in the original language. And by saying the name in the original language, you are now participating in holiness with God. Some go as far to say that you get a special blessing from God, or that you have a special relationship with God, when you say those names in the original form. And there are some that go so far as to say that it is an issue of salvation. If you do not say the names of God in the revealed scripture – the way they are revealed in the Scripture – you don’t receive salvation. So it actually becomes a salvation issue. Most of the time, most groups say, “You’re not blessed by God,” or “You don’t have a special relationship with God.” This is a requirement for a special relationship with God.

Now, once again, it’s such a diverse group of people, all I can talk about is general concepts, because, depending on which group or teacher you’re dealing with – and over the years, I’ve studied many different groups of teachers involved in Sacred Names – they have different approaches, different ideas – so we can only talk about this – especially in an hour sermon – in very general sense. But it is a legitimate question. Do we have to say God’s name in Hebrew in a very specific way, pronouncing it very specifically, in order to receive a blessing, or even receive salvation? What does that mean?

I want to look at, first, three basic tenets of most Sacred Names groups and then I want to talk about what the New Testament teaches on this subject. So we can’t deal with all the issues, but we can get an overview of the subject.

The first major tenet of most Sacred Names groups…. And I hate to lump everybody together here, you know, because some Sacred Names groups are just people who love to explore the Hebrew and the Aramaic names of God. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s good. We should explore those. But I’m dealing specifically with the concept that holiness requires that we get a special blessing from God, or even receive salvation, by saying the proper names in the proper way. It’s not just even saying the name. Sometimes you have to say it in the proper way. So I want to deal with that specifically. So the first tenet is that God requires that He only be called by His Hebrew name – the Father requires that you only call Him by His Hebrew name.

Now, the thing is that, in the Bible, God reveals Himself in many names. And there is, sometimes, an attempt to say, “Well, He only has one name and He has many titles.” But He actually reveals Himself in many, many names.

Exodus 34, verse 14 – I find this one interesting. God, here, is talking about how He hates idolatry, in verse 13, and in Exodus 34:14 He says:

Exodus 34:14 – For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Shame is the word there – name. God says, “You can call me Jealous.” He actually said that’s one of His names! – which reveals something about Him.

Now, when we think of jealousy, what do we think? Human jealousy. If you look through the context, what He’s saying is, “I am so particular that I AM” – I AM is how you translate one of His names in English. The I AM is very interesting. It’s very active in Hebrew. You could translate that, instead of I AM WHAT I AM, I WIL BE WHAT I WILL BE. I sort of like that translation – I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE. But He says He is so strict about “I AM God and you are to worship Me” that it is hurtful to God when human beings are involved in idolatry. He says, “You can call me Jealous.” So there’s a point where you can go to God and properly say to Him, “I come before You, Almighty Jealous God.” He says it’s one of His names. Now you have to use it in the right context.

So there are many names. There are many times He says, “This is My shame.” And not all of His names, by the way, are Hebrew. El is a generic word that you find used for God in the Old Testament – El. It was used in many Semitic languages – not just Hebrew. In fact, the major god of the Canaanites was called El. And so we see El as not a Hebrew word, but God accepted as worship of Him. They could come to Him and worship Him as El, even though it was not a Hebrew word. At times El refers to people, it refers to pagan gods, and it refers to God Himself. In fact, one of the most famous of those is in Genesis 17. So, God has more than one name and, in the Old Testament, He was not always called by a Hebrew name. Genesis 17, verse 1:

Genesis 17:1 – When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD – this is one of the names of God we’re going to talk about – a very important one – I’ll say Yahweh – that’s how I pronounce it – there is a huge controversy about how to pronounce it – Yahweh appeared to Abram and said to him, “I AM Almighty God. Walk before Me and be blameless.” I am El Shaddai. El Shaddai – the Almighty God. El there is a Semitic words that through all kinds of different languages and is a generic word for God, including the Canaanite name for one of their predominant deities.

Parts of the book of Daniel and Ezra were not written in Hebrew. They were originally written in Aramaic. The reason why is, they were in places where Aramaic was spoken. Now, Daniel would have spoken Hebrew, but when he was in Babylon, they didn’t speak Hebrew. He wrote in Aramaic. And so let’s look at Daniel 2:20 – Daniel, chapter 2, verse 20. And this is a huge subject. We could go an hour sermon just on the names of God in the Old Testament and then we could do a whole hour sermon on the names of God and Christ in the New Testament. So we could spend a huge amount of time on this. But I just want to cover the basics.

Daniel 2:20 – Daniel answered and said, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. Now this isn’t written in Hebrew. Elah is the name here. It’s an Aramaic word. So you will find the Aramaic used for God, even though the people of God still spoke Hebrew, because they were in an Aramaic setting.

So we see here, in the Old Testament, that there are these various names for God. They all reveal something about Him. It’s just amazing to go through all of them and how God reveals Himself over and over in all these names – the LORD of Hosts – Yahweh Sabaoth – the God of Armies. When God says, “I am Yahweh Sabaoth,” He’s saying, “Look out!” because it’s a statement of power! It’s a statement of might. So you’ll find all these different names of God. They are important. They’re important to know. We can use them. We can use them in our language. We can use them in the ancient language. So they’re all important to know.

Now there is one of the names of God – and it became very special to the ancient Israelites – and this is the center of a lot of controversy when it comes down to the Sacred Names Movement. Let’s go to Exodus, chapter 6.

Exodus 6:1 – Now the LORD said to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand he will let them go and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.” And God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD.”  Now this is very important – we’ve mentioned this before. When you see, in the Old Testament, L-O-R-D capitalized, that’s a different word than when you see it when it’s not capitalized.

V-3 – “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by My name LORD, I was not known to them.”

Now, the Hebrew in verse 3 is a little bit vague. And there are two ways of looking at this. One is that “they knew Me by El Shaddai, but I’m revealing to you a new name…” or “they primarily knew Me as El Shaddai, and really didn’t know Me as this name.” In other words, “It was one of My names, but it wasn’t their primary way.” Either way, the point being made is that when Abraham and Isaac and Jacob approached God, it was primarily as El Shaddai – God Almighty. That was His name to them. And Yahweh was either not known or it was a secondary name. From this point on, though, El Shaddai would become a secondary name. It would be used – it’s used throughout the Old Testament – but the primary name, by which Israel approached God, was as Yahweh.

Now, I say Yahweh – but I have say that’s how I’ve chosen to pronounce it – Yahweh becomes the covenant name between God and Israel. As the covenant name, it becomes the fullness of the name. The root comes from the same word that is I AM. In other words, always existing. So, when God talked to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai – as the Almighty God – the all-sufficient God, really, is what it means – I am Sufficient – “I give you everything you need” – but He shows up hundreds of years later and says, “I am the One that lasts forever. I am the God the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So you’re going to primarily know me as the One that goes on and on forever! The promises I made to him are the promises I made to you. And the promises I make to you will go on to your children.” So it’s very important – this word that He’s using – this name. It doesn’t erase all these other names. They’ll continue to be used, but it does become the primary name in which Israel would pray to Him and talk to Him. It would become the primary name.

Now, it’s not the only name. Elohim was used all the time. And Elohim is the plural of El. So it’s not just a Hebrew word. It was a generic word used in a lot of different languages. Elohim can mean people. Mighty men were sometimes called elohim. But it’s also used for God. It’s also used for pagan gods. But Elohim was used a lot, as was Adonai, which is means Lord. But the primary name that Israel would know Him by was The One Who Keeps Showing Up – that’s my personal definition, okay? – The One Who Just Keeps Showing Up – the One who was in the past, and who works with us now, and carries out His covenants. So it’s a very important name and it has to do with faithfulness. He is faithful! “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” How many times did He say that and then reference Himself when you look at it? “I am Yahweh” – “I am this One who existed, and exists, and will exist.” So it has to do with His faithfulness to them as the covenant people.

Now, when the Jews went into the Babylonian captivity, they became very, very strict on the use of the name of God. The belief was that they had profaned God, and they profaned His name, and they had been punished. And between that time and the time they came back and settled into the land, they began to do something very important. One was, they didn’t use this name in conversation. It was only used in the temple by the priests. And when they wrote…. Remember, scribes would sit down and write the Bible. Now some of you have gone to the doctrine classes and we gave four doctrine classes on the Bible – how we got the Bible, where we got the Bible, how it’s constructed. And we talked about how these scribes would have to write letter by letter. If they made a mistake, they had to annotate it. There were marginal notes made by editors – “this word was exactly spelled right.” And they meticulously copied the Bible so that each new generation would have it. And that’s how we have it today. Scribes were just central to the protection of the Bible. They did not want to profane this name. This name was very special because it was given to them as the covenant name.

So they wouldn’t spell it out entirely. When they wrote it, they only wrote the consonants – YHVH in English. Now in German, it’s different. So the other languages even use different letters, but in English it’s YHVH. They dropped out the vowels. How can you use a name in vain when you don’t write the whole thing? If you ever read Orthodox Jewish writings today, they not only do that with Hebrew, they do it with any language. If you read Orthodox Jewish readings today and they say God in English, it’s G/D. They drop out the vowel. So they’re being sure, even in English, that they don’t misuse that word. Of course, you have to use some names. You can never not say, “God,” so today, they’ll use Adonai. Wherever Yahweh is mentioned, Orthodox Jews won’t say, “Yahweh.” They will say, “Adonai.” This is known as – I’ll give you a big Greek word here to learn – Tetragrammaton. It’s a big Greek word that means four letters – a word of four letters – Tetragrammaton.

So, this is the divine name. This is what was considered…and it’s not the only one. There are seven names that the Orthodox Jews will only use sparingly or they’re very careful about, because they say they’re the most holy of God’s names. But this is considered the most holy of God’s names – YHVH. So when you see capital LORD in your Bible, you’re looking at YHVH. Lord isn’t, actually, a good translation of it, but the translators in English had to write something down and since the Jews said Adonai, which could be translated Lord, they just translated it LORD.

So here we have YHVH. So they come out of captivity, nobody speaks it except the priests. Before that time we know, in the Bible, people talked about it. You’ll see over and over again where people used this word verbally all the time, where over hundreds of years, the average person begins to lose the ability to say it. They don’t know how it’s pronounced, unless you go to temple, but you can’t say it. You can’t write it. Then guess what happens after the temple is destroyed? Ask an Orthodox Jew today how to pronounce YHVH and he’ll say…well, he wouldn’t even try. It would be blasphemy. So, the absolute truth is, nobody knows exactly how to pronounce it. For a couple hundred years, in English, they thought it was Jehovah. Now, very few, except the Jehovah’s Witnesses, believe that it is Jehovah. That’s not how it would be pronounced. There are some problems with that when you understand how words are pronounced in Hebrew. So, to this day, there are three, four, five, six…there are numerous ways, in the Sacred Names Movement, in which this is pronounced. Some say, “Unless you pronounce it this way, you won’t receive the blessing. You have to pronounce it this way.” The problem is, ask a Jew who speaks Hebrew and he’ll say, “We don’t know.” The Jews are no help in this, because they will tell you, “We don’t know.” The whole Sacred Names Movement is a Christian movement. It is not a Jewish movement, because in Judaism, they’re not even going to try to pronounce it.

So we have this very important name, which is now brought down to four Hebrew letters, which is now transcribed into four letters in different languages, and everybody sort of tries to work out what it actually says. And so we should use it…you know, I use Yahweh all the time. I use it in sermons. But that’s how I choose to pronounce it. Others pronounce it differently – Jahveh, Jah, Yah, Yahveh, Yahueh. It’s pronounced a lot of different ways – all of them claiming it’s correct. Well, you’ve heard me use it before, but I don’t know if it’s correct. It’s the closest I could get. If my salvation is dependent on me pronouncing it correctly, I may be in real trouble, because I’ve been pronouncing it in Gary language. And my name means mighty warrior, which has nothing to do with me. Okay?

So we have a problem. The pronunciation has been lost. This presents us a real problem. But I understand the desire to keep it holy. I’m not saying the desire to keep it holy is wrong. I want to make sure today…I don’t want you to think I’m condemning everybody that tries to do what some the Sacred Names groups do. The problem is, if we make it an issue of salvation or special blessing, is that correct? That’s important. Is that biblically correct?

Now we also know that there were lots of names given in the Old Testament for the Messiah. And some of them we think of as titles, but let’s look at Isaiah 9:6 – just sort of a side point here to show you how, sometimes, titles and names become sort of blurred in our discussion of God, because each title, each name reveals something about Him. This is a prophecy, of course, about the coming Messiah and in Isaiah 9:6 it says:

Isaiah 9:6 – For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given. And the government will be upon His shoulders, and His shame – His name – will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. Those were all names of the Messiah. And we’re going to talk about some of His New Testament names here in just a little bit.

So we have a number of problems here. That’s the first one – the Tetragrammaton – no one knows exactly how it should be pronounced. Now, each Sacred Names group will tell you, “Yes, we do.”  That’s why the Sacred Names Movement is not a singular group. One of the reasons why is, they can’t all agree on how it’s pronounced. So we do the best we can. We all do the best we can in how we pronounce it. And it’s proper to use those names, but the issue is that they have to be in Hebrew.

So, we come to the New Testament. Now the New Testament, traditionally is taught, was written originally in Greek. Sacred Names Movement came out a long time ago, and said, “No, it wasn’t. It was written in Hebrew.” We do have, from the second century, some writers who talk about the book of Matthew and the book of Hebrews, and says that those books were written in Hebrew, or at least that they were available in Hebrew. We don’t know if they were originally written in Hebrew, but it’s possible. So we know that Matthew and Hebrews ends up in Hebrew – whether it was originally or not, it doesn’t matter. In the second century, we’ve got copies of Matthew and Hebrews in Greek and Hebrew. There are no numbers of manuscripts of the New Testament in the second and third centuries in Hebrew. So they reached a point where the argument has no weight. It’s an opinion.

So over the years, there began to be a different on this. And that is, that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic – The Peshitta. Now we do know that the Old Testament ended up in Aramaic. And we also know about targums. Now those of you who’ve gone to the doctrine classes know that we’ve talked about targums – how the rabbis would read from the Hebrew scriptures, and then people would take notes, and transcribe it into Aramaic. What they would do was, he would read it – up to three verses at a time – in Hebrew, and then another man would translate it into Aramaic, and the people would take notes. Those are called targums. There are thousands of scraps of pieces of targums that have survived from the first century BC through the first century AD. So we know a little bit about what was taught in some of the various synagogues.

Now, here are the issues we have. We have hundreds of manuscripts from the second and third centuries in Greek. There are a few in Aramaic. There are over 5,000 bits and pieces, and sometimes entire manuscripts, up until the fifth and sixth centuries in Greek, as people took the Bible and rewrote for each next generation. We don’t have that many numbers of Aramaic until the fifth century. And the reason why is, Aramaic became – the Aramaic version of the New Testament – became the primary Bible of the Greek Orthodox Church. So it became the primary New Testament used in much of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, while the Greek was used as the primary New Testament in much of the western part of the Roman Empire.

In the Aramaic, where in the New Testament, you see the word God, they put in the Tetragrammaton. In other words, every place you see God or the reference to Jesus, it is the Aramaic use of those names. So it’s the belief that this supports the idea that the original New Testament was Aramaic and we must use the Aramaic words for God, which are similar to Hebrew. But I will tell you this. Hebrew and Aramaic aren’t exactly the same language. That’s important to understand. They’re not exactly the same language. And that means that now we not only have a controversy on how to pronounce Yahweh, we now have a controversy on how to pronounce Yeshua or Jeshua. So now we must say Jesus’ name in the Aramaic. Jesus would have spoken in Aramaic as His primary language. The conversations that Jesus had with his disciples were primarily in Aramaic. We all know that. That was the primary language of Judea at the time – and through much of the Middle East – not the Roman Empire, but through much of the Middle East.

Now we have a couple logic problems. First of all, you can’t…the oldest manuscripts are not Aramaic. The oldest manuscripts are Greek. So there is no absolute proof that the Aramaic was original. We know it appeared very soon, but so did the New Testament in various other languages. It appeared in Latin very soon, but nobody argues that Latin was the original language, because they didn’t speak Latin, except in Rome and the Italian peninsula. So Jesus would have spoken Aramaic, but Aramaic was not the common language of the Empire. And this is very important. We have certain problems when we begin to look at the New Testament. Why would Paul write a letter to Corinth, which is a city that sits right in the middle of Greece, and write them a letter they did not understand? Why would he send a letter to Thessalonica, in the middle of Greece, in a language they would not have understood? Why would he send a letter to Rome, in the middle of Italy, in a language they would not understand? You say, “Well, yeah, but some of the Jews would have understood Aramaic.” Read the letter to Corinth. Read the letter to the Romans. A lot of them were not Jews. In fact, in Corinth, it’s predominantly Gentile. Why would Luke, who is a Greek, write the Gospel of Luke…read the beginning of the Gospel of Luke. He writes it to a fellow Greek, who doesn’t live in Judea. So he’s a Greek writing to another Greek, and he’s going to write in a language the other man doesn’t know. Why would he write the book of Acts in a language to a man – a man in the book of Acts – he said, “I am sending this to a man who is a Greek – it’s a Greek name – and Luke is a Greek – why would he send it in a language the other man would not know?

So we have just serious problems of simple logic. The oldest manuscripts are Greek. We have over 5,000 Greek manuscripts. We do have Aramaic manuscripts. By the way, I use an Aramaic Bible, sometimes, when I’m researching into the scripture. Some of the translation is very good. But that’s a totally different viewpoint…I mean, I use the Tanakh, which is the Jewish Publication translation of the Old Testament. Sometimes I use that, instead of the King James, because it’s a little different translation and it’s a better translation. I also know that English wasn’t the original word that they used when I’m reading a translation. When I’m reading the Aramaic, I’m reading a translation of a translation. You say, “Well, how do you come to those conclusions?” Well, one of the things that people who look at the Aramaic New Testament will bring up – and it’s true – there are passages of the New Testament where there are Aramaic idioms and there are things that only make sense…you know, there’s a pun – there’s a joke…it doesn’t mean anything to us, but it meant something to them and you have to know Aramaic to know it. Just like we’ve told about, when we were going through the Minor Prophets, there are parts of the Minor Prophets that don’t make any sense to us in English, but it does in ancient Hebrew. In fact, some of it doesn’t even make sense in modern Hebrew. They make perfect sense in ancient Hebrew. There are certain parts of the New Testament that make sense if it’s in Aramaic.

Of course, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were all written by men that were recording conversations that took place in what? In Aramaic! But they also knew Greek. There are also passages that – so you’ll get the other side – people believe it was all Greek – and they show this: they will show there are all kinds of passages, especially in Paul’s writings, that make no sense, except in Greek. They are Greek idioms. They are Greek uses of words. Well, of course. Paul was educated in classical Greek education. He quotes Greek poets. Right? He didn’t quote Greek poets in Aramaic. He quoted Greek poets in Greek.

See, the Bible isn’t static. In the world in which they lived, people spoke all different kinds of languages. And Aramaic was a primary language in the Middle East and Greek was a primary language in the wealthy empire, including the Middle East.

Now, there is another problem with Aramaic manuscripts. In the oldest Aramaic manuscripts 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude and Revelation aren’t in it. So you have to come to two different conclusions. And these are the two different conclusions they come to: Some believe that 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude and Revelation shouldn’t be part of the Bible, because they are not in the oldest Aramaic manuscripts. Or, what, at least, most of the groups I’ve looked at conclude is that 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude and Revelation were protected in the Greek and then translated in the Aramaic. Now wait a minute. They were protected in the Greek and then translated. And when they translated it into the Aramaic, they changed it to the sacred names. But it means the oldest copies we have are in Greek and do not contain the sacred names. And that’s important. I’ll show you that in a minute. The oldest copy of Revelation – either Revelation shouldn’t be in your Bible or the oldest copies are Greek. How important is that? We’ll talk about that in a minute.

Now, I will say something…this comes up every once in a while. About a year ago, someone came to me and said that the word Jesus in Spanish is a…I went to the Internet site and there was this whole argument on why this is true. In Spanish, Jesus is Jesus (pronounced in Spanish). Right? So, that shows that you should never use that word, because it means Hail Zeus. Jesus – Hail Zeus. Now, some of you speak Spanish. You know there is no connection between those two words. They’re not even related. What’s amazing is, if you look for the word Jesus – we get Jesus from the Greek – if you look at the word Jesus in Greek – it’s not pronounced Jesus in Greek, but I’m close – actually Jesus (in Spanish) is probably closer – and if you look at Zeus in Greek, with Greek letters, they’re not even remotely the same word!.. So it’s absurd argument. But this is what happens when you begin to believe that God only hears you in a particular language. You begin to believe that, as they said, Greek is a pagan language. Now Greek was a pagan society. My Bible says that God created the languages at the tower of Babel, so how do say that this language is pagan if it was created by God. You can’t pronounce a language as pagan. You can pronounce a culture as pagan, or a religion as pagan, but if God created the language, how is it pagan? So that argument really becomes rather bizarre.

Now, it also helps us to know a little bit about the Septuagint. Now once again, if you’ve been in the Bible doctrines class, we went through the Septuagint. The Septuagint was started to be written about 250 BC. It took a while for it to get finished. But the Septuagint was the Jews – this is very important – the Jews translating the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. Now why would the Jews translate it into Greek? They didn’t translate it into any other language. Now we do know there was an Aramaic version of the Old Testament, but I mean this was a project done specifically by the Jewish hierarchy. It’s because Greek was so prominent throughout the empire that the synagogues needed a Greek translation to use. So they created what is called The Septuagint – The Seventy – because there was somewhere between seventy and seventy-two men that worked on it – scholars – so it became known as The Seventy –  The Septuagint. So they created The Septuagint. And so the Old Testament was available in Greek throughout the Roman Empire.

Now, did Jesus and His followers in Judah have any knowledge of Greek? Now, there is an argument that they did not. They only spoke in Aramaic, so Aramaic is the only language that we should use. Well, let’s go to Matthew 12. I want to show you something. I know this is a little bit of…some of you are saying, “I really don’t care,” but it is important, because, if we should use His name in a specific language, then we should. So it is important. Now, this is something that goes clear back in the history of the Sabbath keepers. Although today, it’s really becoming big in the Pentecostal churches today. It’s part of the Pentecostal Movement in some areas. Here we have a quote – Matthew 12:17:

Matthew 12:17 - …so that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “Behold, my Servant, whom I have chosen – My Beloved, in whom My soul is well pleased. I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He will declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel, nor cry out, nor will anyone else hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break and smoking flax He will not quench until He sends for justice to victory, and His name Gentiles will trust.”

So Matthew wrote this, and he said, “This is what Isaiah said” – okay? – “this is what Isaiah said about the Messiah.” So this was in the context of him showing that Jesus was the Messiah. I want to show this translation in a couple…. Here is what Matthew 12:21 says in the New King James: “and His name Gentiles will trust.” Now this is the last sentence. Because, if you go through these translations, there are slight differences, but they all mean the same. This is what is important about translations: Do they all mean the same? If one is dramatically different, why is it different? So, if you go through these three translations, it’s basically the same, but I really want to stress the last sentence. The New King James says: “And in His name, Gentiles will trust.” The NIV says: “in His name, the nations will put their hope.” The Aramaic English New Testament says, “and the people will hope in His name.” Now, they’re slightly different, but they’re all basically the same. What’s important is, that Matthew 12:18-21 is a quote from Isaiah. Now, if we go to the King James Version of this quote in Isaiah 42:1-4, we will find that Matthew dropped part of it out. They did that all the time. You look at quotes in the New Testament…they’ll take a quote from Hosea, a quote from Psalms, and a quote from Jeremiah and put them altogether, like it’s all one verse. And you have to search all three of those places to find what they are saying. So he dropped out some of it, but basically, we have what it says. If you read about it in the King James, it basically says this, except for one thing – go to Isaiah – Isaiah 42 – the King James says, as this last sentence:

Isaiah 42:4 – He will not fail nor be discouraged till He has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands shall wait for His law.

Now that’s pretty different than what we just read, right? That’s pretty different than “in His name, the Gentiles will trust,” and “in His name, the nations will put their hope, and the Aramaic English New Testament, “and the people will hope in His name.” Now the King James is quoting directly from the Masoretic text. They’re getting this from the Hebrew – “and the coastlands shall wait for His law.” What does the NIV say? “He will not falter nor be discouraged till He has established justice in the earth, and in His law, the islands will put their hope.” Well that’s different. The New King James, the NIV, and the Aramaic English New Testament don’t even say law. They say name. The Jewish Publication Society…okay, we’ll get it directly from the Jews who translate the Hebrew into English: “He shall not grow dim, nor be bruised until He has established the true way on earth, and the coastlands shall wait for His teachings.” So these agree – The King James, the NIV, and the Jewish Publication Society – all agree that this is what the Hebrew says. But the New King James, the NIV, and the Aramaic all disagree that Matthew is quoting it properly. How do solve that? That seems like a minor thing, but this is important to the point I’m about to make. How do you solve that? Anybody want to take a guess? You can even raise your hand. Matthew is quoting The Septuagint. Matthew is quoting the Greek Old Testament.

To say that these people had no knowledge of Greek means you don’t understand even what they’re saying in the New Testament. He quotes – not only does he quote it, Jesus quotes The Septuagint, and Paul quotes The Septuagint – not all the time, but sometimes. They quote The Septuagint. This is why, in the book of Acts, it talks about, in Judea, they had all this problem with the Hellenist Jews. They’re called Hellenists. People say, “Oh, there must have been a bunch of Greeks in Jerusalem.” There weren’t a bunch of Greeks in Jerusalem. There were Jews who had accepted Greek culture and language. That’s why they were called Hellenists. One of the first major problems in the church was what? Between taking care of the Hebrew Jews and the Hellenists Jews. How can there be two different kinds of Jews? Easy. One had a Hebrew culture and one had a Greek culture. And they were all in the church, by the way. To say they didn’t have a knowledge of Greek…even the Aramaic version of the Bible agrees that they were speaking often. In fact, the last part of Mark 16 is not in the oldest Greek manuscripts. It is in the majority of Greek manuscripts and it’s in the Aramaic version of the New Testament. And the reason why is – in the footnote, it says, “We know this isn’t in the oldest Greek manuscripts, but we believe it should be there, because it’s in the Aramaic.” And remember, we have entire books of the New Testament that didn’t appear in the Aramaic – oldest Aramaic.

So, what importance then, does the New Testament…. Do you understand my point here? Or have I lost all of you? Do you understand my point? They had to know Greek to quote The Septuagint. You say, “Why is The Septuagint slightly different? It’s very simple. The Hebrew says that “His law will go to the coastlands.” What did that mean outside of a Hebrew context – because it’s a Hebrew idiom? That means “to all the world.” So they simply translated it to Greek as, it “will go to all the Gentiles.” It will go to everybody. It would be like me saying, “The gospel has to go out to the ends of the earth,” and then you saying, “What he said was, ‘The gospel has to go to all nations.’” It means the same thing. I mean, Mr. Saldivar is back there trying desperately to keep up with my fast talking and translating. And I guarantee you, some of the things he’s saying isn’t exactly what I’m saying. He can’t talk that fast. But he’s capturing the meaning of it, isn’t he? He’s capturing the meaning of it. Well, I hope he is. (Chuckles)

The New Testament church was told and commanded to take the gospel to all the world. Acts 2 is very important in this context. It is not wrong – I just have to stress this – it is not wrong to use Hebrew and Aramaic names for God. It is not wrong to talk about them. It is not wrong to look at the importance in your personal worship. And it’s surely not wrong to say them. The question is, “Is it required to receive a blessing? Is it required for a relationship with God? And is it required for salvation?” Those are the questions. And those have to be answered. Acts 2:

Acts 2:1 – When the day of Pentecost had fully come – you know this – Acts 2:2:

V-2 – And suddenly there came the sound from heaven as a rushing mighty wind…, and there appeared tongues of fire – verse 3….

V-4 – And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews – devout men – from  every nation under heaven. These are Jews and proselytes, as we know – people from all over. And what was the miracle? And when the sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. They were amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?” How is it that we hear each one in our own language in which we were born – Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, dwellers in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, in parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome – both Jews and proselytes – Cretans and Arabs. We hear them speak in our own tongues the wonderful message of God.

The message of God had been primarily to a family that developed into a nation. They worshipped the God of Israel. If you wanted to worship that God, you had to become an Israelite, and then you worshipped the God of Israel. The prophecies say that one day this would expand out to the whole world and what started in Acts, chapter 2 is, a certain barrier had to come down. The gospel could not be contained in a singular language. If a singular language was the purpose, then God would have given them a singular language. He did not! What happens here is the exact opposite! It’s the exact opposite! The Creator of language has said, “I’m going to give you power to go to the world. They don’t have to know Aramaic. They don’t have to know Hebrew. You can go to them and you can teach them.” Now knowing Aramaic and Hebrew helps understand a lot of things, but there are now many, many, many people over the last 2,000 years who have been converted, who wait in their graves for the return of Jesus Christ to be changed, who never knew a single word of Hebrew or Aramaic, but were converted and received the Spirit of God in Swahili, or Polish, or German, or whatever language God chose to talk to them in. This is power of the New Testament. This is power of the church. And it is amazing! It is that the gospel can go out to everybody in whatever language they speak.

Now, I think all of us should learn some Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic. I think it’s helpful. But the question is, “Is it required?” If these books were written in Greek, which the overwhelming evidence is – that they were written in Greek – then these books did not contain the sacred names. God was Theos. I mean, look at Acts 17. Let’s look at Acts 17. What happens here is that Paul is in Athens – you know the story. He’s in the Areopagus. He’s overwhelmed with what he sees. And in verse 22, he says:

Acts 17:22 – Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. For I was passing through and considered the objects of your worship. I even found an altar with the inscription TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. He didn’t speak to them in Hebrew. It would have been meaningless. He was talking to the greatest philosophers in the world, who all speak Greek. He didn’t speak to them in Aramaic. He didn’t say, “I’ve come to speak to you about the unknown Yahweh,” because that’s not what it said on the altar. It would have meant nothing to them. The word he would have used is Theos, because that’s what is written on the altar. And he said:

V-23 – “…therefore, the one you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you – Theos I proclaim to you. I’m proclaiming to you Theos!” It’s the name he’s using, because it is the name he’s reading right there on the altar – “God who made the world” – Theos who made the world – “and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, and does not dwell in temples made with hands.” He goes on and explains who God is. He had to be using Greek, because he was reading it right in front of them. He had to. And which God is he explaining to them? The God in their language. Theos can mean Zeus, too – right? – just like you and I say gods. It’s a generic word. He used that generic word to teach them the gospel. And he didn’t say, “But before you do this, you’re going to have to say El Shaddai.” He didn’t do that. He said you could call on Him – all in the context of using the word Theos. Even if this was written first in Aramaic, which it wasn’t, he had to be speaking to them in Greek. He had to.

And I know that I’m covering a lot of ground because this is such a huge subject, but if we can look at the important points, we have to come some conclusions. Remember, Revelation wasn’t part of the oldest Aramaic manuscripts. And there are no old Hebrew manuscripts. We only have Greek manuscripts of Revelation – the oldest ones. What does Revelation say about God and about the names of Jesus Christ? Now some Sacred Names groups – not very many, but a few – do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. That, of course, is a heresy. Most believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Revelation 1, verse 8. The only source we have for this is Greek.

Revelation 1:8 – I am the Alpha and the Omega – this is the One who is Jesus Christ – the First and the Last. Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. It’s a Greek name. You can’t get around it. Its original source is Greek and its words are Greek. I am the Alpha and the Omega – the First and the Last.

Revelation 19 – I find Revelation 19 very interesting in this context – verse 11:

Revelation 19:11 – Now I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on him was called Faithful and True. It’s a name – Faithful and True. And in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire. On His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself.

There’s a name of Jesus – Jesus (Spanish) – Yehshua – Joshua (I tried last night to memorize Jesus – Yehshua – in Japanese and I couldn’t say it. I tried. I just couldn’t get it out.) There’s a name He has that nobody knows – even the Father. Nobody knows. But here’s what’s very interesting:

V-13 – He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood and His name is called The Word of God.

The only sources we have of this are Greek – the oldest original sources. And He is known as Logos Theos. It’s a name. It’s not Hebrew. It’s not English. It’s Logos Theos. It’s His name. You can go before Yeshua or Jeshua – and people argue whether that’s how you pronounce it in Aramaic – you can go before Him and call Him the Logos Theos and you’d be absolutely correct. That’s who He is. That’s one of His names. And it’s in Greek. Or you could call Him The Word of God, or you could call Him that in whatever language you choose to call out to Him in, and He will listen, and He will bless, depending on your heart. Now we’re going to have to talk about how do we hallow His name? I mean, that’s an important thing. Because we not only can use God’s name in vain in Hebrew and Aramaic, we can use God’s name in vain in any language. We could use God’s name in vain in any language. This expands this out. And how do we use God’s name in vain? And how do we hallow God’s name. That’s the next sermon in our series on holiness.

And then, let’s end here in Revelation 14 – Revelation 14, verse 6:

Revelation 14:6 – And I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue and people. During the tribulation, an angel is sent out to preach the gospel to every language. And there isn’t one – not one – place in the New Testament where they are told to teach the names of God in Hebrew or Aramaic – not one! If it was important, there would be some instructions. There’s not one. But it does go out in every tongue – every language.

It is important and it should be clear that we study and even use the names of God in their original languages. And that can be beneficial, but we cannot – we cannot – require that that be done in order to receive a blessing from God, or have a special relationship with God, or for salvation, because those become barriers to people of different languages to the gospel. And it also then becomes an issue of secret knowledge. And this is a great danger. Secret knowledge is a great danger. I make this as a warning statement, not as a blanket statement, because I don’t know anybody that’s done this in my life of dealing with lots of people who have sacred names ideas. I’ve met lots of people who believe in certain aspects of sacred names. So I make this as statement, not because I’ve ever met anybody like this, I just see this on some Websites and it scares me. So I’m just saying this in terms of some Websites I’ve seen.

In ancient paganism it was believed that if you knew the name – the secret name – of a god or goddess, you received power from that god or goddess. In the Jewish Kabbalah, which is a mystic Jewish religious practice that has, basically, has merged magic into it. They find names of God in everything. The entire Hebrew alphabet – each letter – is a name of God. They find names of God in everything. And they do it incantations of God’s name in order to get power from God. In Hinduism, there are certain prayers that you do, where you incite and chant over and over again certain names of certain gods so you can obtain a higher level of spiritualism. In the Middle Ages, in the Greek Orthodox Church, there was called the Jesus Prayer. It’s only one sentence long. And they would repeat that Jesus Prayer over and over and over again until the power of Jesus came upon them. In the Roman Catholic Church – if you’ve ever been to a Roman Catholic Mass – sometimes the recital of the names of God or Jesus or Mary are done over and over and over again, in order to obtain a higher state of spirituality.

We can never use the names of God in those kinds of ways, because that is using His name in vain. That is using His name in vain. They believe we tap into His power if we pronounce His name exactly the way it should be, and therefore, “I receive a power; you don’t.” The power of God comes from the person of God – who He is, who our Father is, who Jesus Christ is. It’s the person it comes from and we need to remember that.

God is the author of all languages. We have a very special language in Hebrew, but remember, the Hebrew spoken by Abraham, and the Hebrew spoken by Moses, and the Hebrew spoken at the time of Jesus, and the Hebrew spoken today isn’t the same language. It had evolved. English isn’t the same language it was 400 years ago. Take someone from Argentina, who’s just learning English, take a man from Scotland, who speaks English, but with a Scottish accent, take someone from rural Mississippi, who has a heavy Mississippi accent, and take Mr. Ken Thomson here, with his Australian accent, and put them into a room, and you would think they were all babbling in strange tongues, and yet, they would all be speaking English. Right? (Someone said, “No, Mr. Thomson would not be speaking English.”) (Chuckles) Hebrew has gone through the same problems. Aramaic has gone through the same problems. That doesn’t change the fact that what we have is the Word of God, protected by God. And what we have is the God of languages, who has given us an opportunity yes, to understand Him as Yahweh – and that’s important – yes, to understand Him as El Shaddai, and El Elyon, and Elohim, and yes, to know Him as all those names, to know Jesus as the Word – as the Logos – as Yeshuah – and to know that He’s not contained in all that. Instead, the God of languages has given us the opportunity to reach, to take His knowledge – who He is – and tell it to every nation, every tribe, every tongue on the face of the earth.