Ten Words: Week 3

Good evening, we are continuing our series on the 10 Commandments this evening. So we are up to commandment 3…which, I supposed logic suggests that we have already covered 1 and 2

Commandment 1: Have no other Gods before Me

Commandment 2: Do not create idols

Commandment 3: Do not take the Lord’s name in vain.

I mentioned this the first week, but the commandments are really broken up into 2 sections:

Honoring God

Honoring others/your neighbor

Included in your handouts this week is a chart of where, in scripture, the 10 commandments are used…where they are spoken in both Exodus and Deut…but also where they are referenced in both the O.T. and the N.T., and then where Jesus mentions them in His teaching. I created this for myself…so I could quickly reference the passages while writing my sermons, but I figured I would share it with you all. The chart gives you a better understanding of how the commandments are referenced throughout all scripture, as opposed to much of the Mosiac law. You can look over the chart and maybe read through the passages for your devotional time. Perhaps take one commandment per day and look up all of the related passages…just an idea.

PRAY

Watch Abot and Costello Skit

How many of us know that the words that we use are important! The 3rd commandment is one of the commandments that I feel is misunderstood. Mostly because of how it is taught in the church.

Exodus 20:7

““You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.”

What’s In A Name?

What did the Lord actually have in mind when He told the Israelites to not take His name in vain?

Original Word: שָׁוְא Transliteration: shav Phonetic Spelling: (shawv) Definition: emptiness, vanity Definition emptiness, vanity NASB Translation deceit (2), deceitful (1), deception (1), emptiness (2), empty (1), false (9), false visions (4), falsehood (7), lies (1), vain (18), vanity (3), worthless (4).

If you look on your handout…not the chart, but the main handout, or I suppose you can look up on the screen here, the idea of taking the Lord’s name is vain is about far more than simply saying the “GD” word.

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 20

Prohibits hypocritical, insincere, or frivolous use of God’s name. The Hebrew phrase combines the verb nasa (“to take up”) and the noun shawe (“falsehood” or “vanity, uselessness”). God takes personal offense to any affiliation or association with Him that denigrates His character or reputation.

Here in the West names do not carry much meaning, but in other parts of the world and especially back in the days of Ancient Israel, names were very important. Think back to when the Jewish people were in Egypt and they had all of those different deities, with all of those different names. Back at the beginning of that story, when God told Moses to go to the Israelites, telling them that the God of their forefathers was going to set them free, Moses asked God, who should I tell them you are, or what should I call you?

Exodus 3:13–14

“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.’ ””

What does “I AM Who I Am” mean?

The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 2: Exodus A Reluctant Prophet

It’s clearly related to the self-existence of God, and it has been understood to mean not only “I AM WHAT I AM,” but “I AM BECAUSE I AM,” and “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE” (or “WHAT I CAUSE TO BE”).

Compared to the many deities in Egypt, God is saying that He is the self-existing One and there is no other beside Him. This is a far cry from what they would have been used to. Of course, most are familiar with the name Yahweh as well.

Yahweh, name for the God of the Israelites, representing the biblical pronunciation of “YHWH,” the Hebrew name revealed to Moses in Exodus Chapter 3. The name YHWH, consisting of the sequence of consonants Yod, Heh, Waw, and Heh, is known as the tetragrammaton.

From the 3rd Century BC onward, Jews stopped using the the official name for God all together, for 2 reasons:

1. As Judaism became a universal rather than merely a local religion, the more common Hebrew noun Elohim (plural in form but understood in the singular), meaning “God,” tended to replace Yahweh to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel’s God over all others.

2. At the same time, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered; it was thus replaced vocally in the synagogue ritual by the Hebrew word Adonai (“My Lord”), which was translated as Kyrios (“Lord”) in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures.

It is clear that what God had originally intended behind the command was lost to the Jewish people, as it was not God’s intention forbid the writing or speaking of His name. In fact, during ancient times when a scribe would have to write the formal name of God, YHWH, they would stop and take a bath before they wrote the name. Again, this is not what God intended when He gave this command.

Interestingly, the name Jehovah is not in any of the oldest translations of the O.T., like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The name Jehovah came from a mispronunciation by the English translators.

O.T. Significance:

Like I mentioned before, the O.T. Israelites viewed a persons name no differently than their character. We can see evidence of this all throughout the O.T., if you know what to look for. I’ll give you 4 quick examples

Proverbs 22:1

“A good name is to be more desired than great wealth, Favor is better than silver and gold.”

Deuteronomy 25:6–7

“It shall be that the firstborn whom she bears shall assume the name of his dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. But if the man does not desire to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’”

2 Samuel 18:18

“Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself a pillar which is in the King’s Valley, for he said, “I have no son to preserve my name.” So he named the pillar after his own name, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.”

Isaiah 56:5

“To them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial, And a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off.”

We will stop there, but there are many more where the significance of a person’s name is very clear…or, even in the case of Absolom, his fear of his name being forgotten. In fact, if we look back at the passage in Deut., Moses wanted to make sure that a persons name would be passed on, as long as he will willing to “do his duty,” and take care of a deceased relatives family.

A person’s name was so important, it was written into the O.T. law. Because that culture was very much an honor/shame culture, a “bad name” was a great source of shame in society. So, I guess we should ask ourselves, was this just a cultural thing among the Israelites, or did God also view names as a big deal? The answer is that is was not simply a matter of culture or society. In fact, God steps in, both in the O.T. and once in the New Testament and gives people a “new name.”

When did this generally happen? At what point in a persons life (in the Bible) did God go out of His way to give a person a new name?

Old Testament: When God commissions the person to do something that requires great faith.

Genesis 17:5

““No longer shall your name be called Abram, But your name shall be Abraham; For I will make you the father of a multitude of nations.”

Genesis 17:15

“Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.”

Genesis 32:28

“He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.””

Even going all of the way back to the very beginning, the writer of Genesis make sure to note that Adam named God’s creation

Genesis 2:19

“Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.”

New Testament: At the point of commissioning.

John 1:42

“He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).”

I bet some of you are thinking…wait a second, I can think of a second (very famous) name change in the N.T. That is correct, it is in:

Acts 13:9

“But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him,”

This is the first time in the N.T. where we see the name Paul. From this point forward, Saul is pretty much always then referred to as Paul. I’ve even once heard a sermon on God changing Saul to Paul…except, that is just simply not the case. Saul’s name change is, unfortunately, for a pretty boring reason…In ancient Roman times, people had 3 names…which we continue to practice today (for the most part, here in the West). When Saul became Paul, it only had to do with using one of his other, already given family names. I suppose we can overspiritualize it…and pretend that God did it…but in fact, there is nothing in scripture to suggest that God purposely changed his name. God never approached Paul and changed his name. It is one of the largest misnomer’s in all of scripture.

Regardless, God did change people’s names…as we’ve seen.

With that said, if God took the time to rename humanity, in certain situations, We can be sure that God viewed His own name as something to be respected and never “Taken in vain.”

In the O.T. we can find a number of names being associated with God, but there are a few that are repeated more than others.

YHWH: Yahweh

The Lexham Bible Dictionary (יהוה (yhwh))

The name יהוה (yhwh) is known as the Tetragrammaton, and was probably pronounced as Yahweh. In the Old Testament, it is the proper name of God and is the most common term used to refer to Him

Sometimes people would combine YHWH with another word in describing a specific characteristic of God, like

YHWH of Hosts, or (in English) Lord of Hosts…which means that God protected Israel in battle.

elohim

Hebrew אֱלֹהִים (elohim) is by far the most common member of a small group of Hebrew and Aramaic words used to refer to God and other deities. People would sometime take the first two letters “el” and combine it with other words like:

El Shaddai: (Gen 17:1; 28:3; 35:11; 43:14; 48:3; Exod 6:3)

EL SHADDAI. One of the names applied to Yahweh in the Old Testament. The name El Shaddai appears mainly in the book of Genesis. In Exodus 6:3, Yahweh says El Shaddai was the name by which He was known to the patriarchs. Ezekiel uses the name once (Ezek 10:5). The label “Shaddai” alone is used more frequently as a name for God. The meaning of shaddai is uncertain. El Shaddai is traditionally translated as “God Almighty.”

Those are just a few, just as an example. More important than the actual name though, is what it represented. In fact, God was so serious about this that a law was given in

Leviticus 24:16

“Moreover, the one who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him. The alien as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.”

As I’ve talked about a number of times, God was teaching the young Israelite nation that they needed to leave behind all former ideas about gods and deities. The One True God, Yahweh is the only God and because names were so closely linked with a person’s character and integrity, God did not permit His name to be used for any purpose other than prayer and worship. One of the major ways that God would reveal His divine character to Israel was through His name…the name above every other name.

New Testament Significance

Matthew 5:33–37

““Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.”

Similar to just about every command that carries over from the O.T., the 3rd commandment is is addressed in the New Testament. Jesus addresses this issues during the Sermon on the Mount…in Matthew 5, which we just read. In this section on the sermon on the mount Jesus is talking about the common practice of swearing oaths based upon one’s own name…like we talked about earlier or on God’s name. Understanding the honor/shame culture is important if one should understnd what Jesus is talking about.

Numbers 30:2

““If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.”

Even in the New Testament we see a similar idea:

Matthew 6:9

““Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.”

While it is certainly true that we can make oaths today, that is not really a part of our culture. For us, we are in danger of taking the Lord’s name in vain in a few different ways…but for me, one of them sticks out, in relation to the others. Let’s look back at the original idea of taking the Lord’s name in vain:

Original Word: שָׁוְא Transliteration: shav Phonetic Spelling: (shawv) Definition: emptiness, vanity Definition emptiness, vanity NASB Translation deceit (2), deceitful (1), deception (1), emptiness (2), empty (1), false (9), false visions (4), falsehood (7), lies (1), vain (18), vanity (3), worthless (4).

Most of the ways that the NASB translates the word vain has to do with deceit, deception, false, falsehood, and lies. I think most of us would agree that we normally do not associate being dishonest with taking the Lord’s name in vain…and I think most of the time it isn’t…however, I submit to you that we take the Lord’s name in vain when we caim to represent Christ here on Earth, but fail to represent Him in an honorable way.

The question we must ask ourselves is

Do we feel the weight of the Lord’s name in our lives?

Taking the Lord’s name in vain today could be understood as identity theft. We caim the name of our Lord for ourselves…that means that we are claiming that we represent God and His character here on the Earth. If, however, we claim God’s name by caiming to be His children, yet we act in ways that do not faithfully represent His character…we are in essence stealing His idendidty and using it for our own purpose. That is taking the Lord’s name in vain.

For myself, the challenge is to make sure that I am never claiming God’s name or using God’s name in vain.

Romans 8:14–17

“For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

If you have accepted Christ into your heart, then you bear His name…and that comes with certain responsibilities. The first of which is to understand that the Name of the Lord carries weight and should never be used in vain, whether by an oath or by acting in such a way to bring dishonor to His name.

My challenge to all of us this week is to spend time reflecting on the Lord’s name and the weight it should carry in your life.