Scripture: Exodus 20: 7; Colossians 3: 17
Sermon: Holy is Your Name
Topics: Translations, Hypocrisy, Name
Preached: September 25 AM, 2016 Woodlawn
Rev. Mike Abma
Exodus 20:7
7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
[Deuteronomy 5: 11 same commandment, same wording
11 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.]
Colossians 3: 17
17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
INTRODUCTION
The third commandment is not particularly long.
In both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, the third commandment contains the exact same 17 Hebrew words.
What is remarkable to me, as I looked closely at this commandment,
is the rather large variation in the translations of this commandment.
With so many variations in translation, I was left wondering,
now what exactly is this commandment saying?
What is it telling us not to do,
and what is it telling us to do?
So we are going to do something a little different this morning.
I am going to read to you 3 different translations of this commandment,
and each of these translations,
I hope, will shed some light on a different nuance,
or different understanding of this command.
I. NO SWEARING
So here is the first translation, this by Eugene Peterson in his rather popular THE MESSAGE. His translation of the 3rd commandment reads like this:
No using the name of God, your God,
In curses or silly banter;
God won’t put up with the
irreverent use of his name.”
Here we have, in a nutshell, perhaps the most common view of this commandment.
No using God’s name,
or any derivative of God’s name,
in an irreverent manner.
This basic understanding of the commandment still needs to be heard
because, let’s face it,
how many times haven’t we heard someone say,
“Oh my G…..” well, I am not actually going to say it.
But you know that expression, and you have heard it, I am sure.
It has unfortunately become a very common expression.
This falls into the irreverent and silly banter that Peterson’s translation tries
to get at.
God’s name is too holy to be used
in common, often frivolous expressions
of surprise, or shock, or unbelief.
I am mentioning this because there does seem to be a “coolness factor” in being a “cussing Christian” — you know, someone so into Jesus that they have no time for all this legalistic stuff.
But this is not simply legalistic stuff.
God’s name is his identity.
To be careless with God’s name is to be careless with God.
And that simply should not be.
This, then, is the first understanding of this 3rd commandment – no cussing, no swearing, no using God’s name in an irreverent way.
II. NO SWEARING FALSELY
Now to another translation, this time from a Jewish translation of the Old Testament.
I should note that there are 2 main Jewish versions – the orthodox one and the reform one. The orthodox one is so cautious about misusing God’s name, that they simply put HASHEM – meaning THE NAME — whenever God’s name appears.
But this translation is from the Reform Jewish community. This is how they translate the third commandment:
You shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord,
for the Lord will not clear one who swears falsely by his name.
This translation moves us beyond swearing –
that is using God’s name in an irreverent way –
to swearing in the context of making an oath or a pledge or a promise.
So is that what this commandment is mainly about?
Is it mainly about not using God’s name
in oaths and promises we do not intend to keep —
is that what “swearing falsely” means?
You know the Anabaptist tradition reads this 3rd commandment alongside the Sermon on the Mount.
Remember what the Sermon on the Mount says in Matthew 5: 33-37?
Jesus says there
Do not to swear at all:
Not by heaven,
Not by earth,
Not by anything.
Let your Yes be Yes and your No be No.
Anything more comes from the evil one.
That Anabaptist tradition says no oaths sworn in God’s name ever.
Period.
So can Christians make promises in God’s name?
Our own Heidelberg Catechism grapples with this one.
Two different questions and answers in the Catechism are spent wrestling with whether we are allowed to swear an oath in God’s name as long as we do so reverently.
Our Catechism says yes, we are allowed.
And it bases this answer on the Bible.
God himself makes lots of promises, covenant promises, in his own name.
And God’s people make lots of promises, covenant promises, in God’s name too.
We follow that tradition.
So at a baptism, parents say a vow with We do, God helping us.
At Profession of Faith, people say a vow: I do, God helping me.
At ordination serves for Elders and Deacons and Pastors,
these new office-bearers say: I do, God helping me.
The problem is not
in making an oath,
or making a promise,
or swearing by God’s name.
The problem is doing so falsely – with no intention of keeping what you promise to keep.
So that is a second understanding of this commandment – if you make a promise in God’s name, do so truthfully not falsely.
III. BEARING GOD’S NAME
Now we get to the third translation, and I will be honest, this is my own translation.
Listen:
You shall not take on the name of Yahweh as your God in an empty way,
for Yahweh will not hold guiltless the one who takes on his name without
meaning it.
In the earlier translations, the main verb was translated as a form of speaking, or uttering. In other words, we break this commandment with our mouths, with the things we say that are irreverent or untrue.
But this commandment is about more than this.
In other places in the Old Testament,
the main verb of the 3rd commandment
is translated as taking on, or carrying or even wearing.
So when Aaron the High Priest puts on his breastplate,
he was taking on, carrying, wearing the names of all 12 tribes of Israel.
In wearing the names, Aaron was representing all of Israel before God.
In the same way, Israel took on, carried, wore the name of God before all the nations of the world.
They wore God’s name like a badge of ownership,
letting everyone know that they belonged to God.
Even the blessing of Numbers 6: 24-26 ends with these words:
So shall my name be put on the Israelites, and I will bless them.
But here is the problem.
Israel lived in a way that misrepresented God.
The way they lived dishonored God’s name again and again.
Read a chapter like Ezekiel 36.
Why is God so sad and so disappointed in his people?
Because they carried his name before all the nations,
and yet the way they lived profaned the holy name of God.
TRANSGRESSING THE 3rd COMMANDMENT
Let me try bring this home a little with a more modern example.
When our family moved to Grand Rapids in 1998, we had to get used to a lot of new things: a new church, a new city, a new country.
I also had to get used to a new colleague – this Peter Jonker fellow.
We soon discovered that we both liked reading novels.
He would recommend books to me; I would recommend books to him.
I remember mentioning that I wanted to read the new novel by Barbara Kingsolver called The Poisonwood Bible.
“Oh no,” said Peter, “Don’t read that book. I hated that book. Don’t waste your time reading that book.”
That was pretty strong language, so for years I didn’t read that book …..until just recently.
Now I know why Peter hated that book so much.
It is a novel about the Price family: a dad, a mom, and 4 daughters.
The Price family moved from Georgia to the Belgian Congo in 1959 so that the dad, Nathan Price, can be a missionary there.
Here is the problem.
The dad, Nathan Price, is simply everything you would NOT want a missionary to be. He is loud. He is arrogant. He is racist.
And over and over again he refuses to be corrected.
In his sermons he keeps saying in the local language: Tata Jesus is bangala.
He thinks he is saying that Jesus is beloved.
What he is actually saying is Jesus is poisonwood.
People try to correct him, again and again, but he refuses to be corrected.
Nathan Price also insists on baptizing people in the river
even though he has been told again and again that the river is infested with
crocodiles.
Nathan Price is a very, very unpleasant person.
And that is why my former colleague Peter hated this book so much.
He hated this book because the main character
carried the name of God, the one true God, into the Belgian Congo,
but this missionary’s life bore so little resemblance to the God he said he
worshipped.
In a nutshell, Nathan Price was a flagrant transgressor of the 3rd commandment.
He took on the name of God
without actually being transformed by God!
He took on the name of Jesus
but was not very Christlike at all.
CONCLUSION
No one wants to be a Nathan Price.
No one wants to be a blatant hypocrite.
No one wants to be a poor witness for God in this world.
It’s like having one of those fish symbols on your car,
then driving like a maniac.
So that is why we are preaching this sermon series.
To help us all live lives that reflect the God we love and worship.
I may be showing my age a bit here, but remember the ZENITH electronics company. They made radios and televisions until LG electronics in South Korea bought them out in the 1990’s.
Anyway, when ZENITH was still in business, they had this motto:
“the quality goes in before the name goes on”
Catchy, isn’t it — the quality goes in before the name goes on.
Well here is the thing about us followers of Christ.
For us, the motto is sort of reversed.
For us,
“the name goes on before the quality goes in.”
In baptism, when we are just tiny, and young, and small,
the name goes on – the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The name goes on long before we really know what quality of person
we will grow into.
It actually is a little scary, isn’t it?
How do we know we will be able to live up to this holy name?
How do we know we won’t appear like hypocrites?
How do we know if we are breaking the 3rd commandment ?
How do we know?
Here is where we have to trust in the Lord,
Trust the one who said, I will put my spirit in you so that you follow me (Ezek 36:26) ;
Trust the one who says to us:
You are my chosen ones, my holy ones, my beloved ones,
You are the people stamped with my name.
Trust the one who wants us to wear his clothes:
His clothes of
Compassion, humility, patience, gentleness,
The ability to forgive and be forgiven;
The ability to love and be loved.
Trust the one who wants his peace to rule our hearts,
And who wants his word to dwell deeply in our souls.
(Colossians 3: 12-17)
Trust him,
Praise him,
Worship him and him alone
And then what we say
And what we do
Will be in the name of our Lord, Jesus;
it will be in thanks to God our Father;
it will be done by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
0 Comments