Bible Basics Digression 3 — God Manifestation

Digression 3: God Manifestation

What follows will not be easy to grasp fully at first reading, but the importance of the subject will become more evident as your studies proceed. We include it at this point so that you will leave this Study having fully considered the Bible's basic revelation about God Himself.

The name of God can be carried by anyone through whom He chooses to 'manifest' or reveal Himself. So men and Angels as well as Jesus can carry God's Name. This is a vital principle which opens up so much of the Bible to us. A son especially may carry the name of his father; he has certain similarities with his father, he may have the same first name — but he is not one and the same person as the father. In the same way a representative of a company may speak on behalf of the company; he may telephone someone on business and say, 'Hello, this is Unilever here'; he is not Mr. Unilever, but he carries their name because he is working on their behalf. And so it was with Jesus.

Angels Carrying God's Name

We are told in Exodus 23:20,21 that God told the people of Israel that an Angel would go ahead of them; "My Name is in Him", they were told. The personal name of God is 'Yahweh'. So the Angel carried the name of Yahweh, and could thus be called 'Yahweh', or 'The LORD', in small capitals, as the word 'Yahweh' is translated in the N.I.V. and A.V. We are told in Ex.33:20 that no man can see the face of God and live; but in Ex.33:11 we read that "The LORD (Yahweh) spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend" — i.e. in a relaxed, friendly way. It could not have been the LORD, Yahweh, Himself in person, who spoke to Moses face to face, because no man can see God Himself. It was the Angel who carried God's Name who did so; and so we read of the LORD speaking face to face with Moses when it was actually an Angel who did so (Acts 7:30-33).

There are many other examples of the words 'God' and 'LORD' referring to the Angels as opposed to God Himself. One clear example is Gen.1:26 "And God (the Angels) said, Let us make man in our image".

Men With God's Name

One of the passages which is most helpful in demonstrating all this is John 10:34-36. Here the Jews made the mistake which many so-called 'Christians' do today. They thought that Jesus was saying he was God Himself. Jesus corrected them by saying, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If He called them 'gods'...how say ye of (me)...'Thou blasphemest' because I said, I am the son of God?'" Jesus is really saying 'In the Old Testament men are called 'gods'; I am only saying I am the Son of God; so why are you getting so upset?' Jesus is actually quoting from Psalm 82, where the judges of Israel were called 'gods'.

As has been shown, the full name of God in Hebrew is 'Yahweh Elohim'- meaning 'I will be revealed in a group of mighty ones'. The true believers are those many mighty ones in a limited sense in this life, and will be so more fully in the Kingdom. This is all beautifully shown by a comparison of Is.64:4 and 1 Cor. 2:9. "Men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for him". Paul quotes this in 1 Cor.2:9,10: "It is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit". The passage in Is.64 says that no one except God can understand the things He has prepared for the believers; but 1 Cor.2:10 says that those things have been revealed to us; so we are in a sense 'God': not God Himself in person, but a manifestation of God as a result of having been baptized into His name and knowing the Truth.

Jesus And The Name Of God

It is not surprising that Jesus, as the Son of God and His supreme manifestation to men, should also carry God's Name. He could say "I am come in my Father's Name" (John 5:43). Because of his obedience, Jesus ascended to Heaven and God "gave him a Name which is above every name"- the name of Yahweh, of God Himself (Phil.2:9). So this is why we read Jesus saying in Rev.3:12, "I will write upon him (the believer) the name of my God...and I will write upon him my new name". At the judgment Jesus will give us God's Name; we then will fully carry the name of God. He calls this name, "My New Name". Remember, Jesus was giving the book of Revelation some years after his ascension into Heaven and being given God's name, as explained in Phil.2:9. So he can call God's name "My new name"; the name he had recently been given. We can now properly understand Isaiah 9:6, where concerning Jesus we are told, "His Name (note that) shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father...". This is a prophecy that Jesus would carry all the names of God — that he would be the total manifestation or revelation of God to us. It was in this sense that he was called 'Emmanuel', meaning, 'God is with us', although He personally was not God.