Freedom is Good News Part 105
/So we know that we are not to have any other gods besides the one true God – the Creator of heaven and earth!! And that’s not all. Even if we know who God is and desire to worship Him, we must not do so by any means other than what He has prescribed. There are to be no images made “in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations, of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:4-6)
So let’s say we understand these first two Commandments and we proclaim to worship the one true God and we have not considered any images of Him to utilize in our worship – and now we come to the third Commandment, “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.” If you are following along, you will notice I only quoted the first half of this commandment. But let us pause here and consider this first half. Some translations tell us we must not “misuse the name of God”. This is not the true meaning here. God is telling us that He will not have us take His name in an empty manner. The Hebrew word “shav” has the basic meaning of, “deceit, vanity emptiness or falsehood”.
It is not good to falsely use God’s name. And most of us probably consider this in conjunction with using His name as a profanity by cursing; this is true. But it goes much deeper. I shall assume that most of us would consider ourselves to be Christians. This name is derived from our being followers of Jesus Christ. In other words, we have taken upon ourselves the name of the Son of God. Do we take upon us this name as something sacred and something to be held in high esteem?
The true name of God is made up of 4 Hebrew letters – in English the letters are YHVH. This has been translated at times as Jehovah, Yahovah, Yahweh and Yahveh. The name of the Son of God, in Hebrew, is Yahoshea. (Jesus is an Anglican version of the Greek.) The first two letters “Ya”, being the shortened form of the Father’s name and the last six letters spell out the Hebrew word for “salvation”. In other words Jesus’ name in the original Hebrew means, “The Salvation of Ya”. The name our Savior was given encompassed the shortened form of God’s true name.
Other than that it is a nice bible study, why am I telling you all this? Jesus did not take upon Himself the Father’s name “in vain”! He understood the gravity, the seriousness and the responsibility of having the name of God placed upon Him. So I must ask you, do you take upon yourself the name of God? Do you take upon yourself the name of the Son of God? There is a heavy weight attached to this name we sometimes so carelessly use for our own honor.
Oh … the second half of this third Commandment? “For the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who takes His name in vain”. Think about it. There is still more to come!!