What Is God's Name? (Part 2)

Last week we introduced some of the questions about how God is named in the Bible, and whether we should add
to those words or change them, with the goal of understanding God better and loving him more.  These goals sound noble, so let's see if the strategy is a good one. I am indebted for this material to the work of James B. Torrance and his brother Thomas F. Torrance, Gary Deddo and Roland L. Frye, among others.

My dad and I didn't get along well when I was growing up.  Until I began to understand and appreciate both God and my father better, I had difficulties accepting God as a father figure -- no surprise, right?  In fact many (not all, of course) of us in the Western world have strained relationships with our physical fathers.  So it seems logical to us that we should want a different word for God, that doesn't remind us of that wound.  Some evangelists have even substituted "friend" for "Father" to be a more acceptable idea to those who don't know God yet.  Others focus on Jesus, who seems more palatable than the Father, thus avoiding -- for the moment -- the issue of God's fatherhood.

So here's the first problem we're going to look at:  this strategy is "anthropocentric" or human-centered, rather than "theocentric" or God-centered.  We've created ourselves as the center of the universe.  We allow our pain to define and determine who we are for the rest of our lives, not believing that God can heal any wound.  That's idolatry.  Instead, when we look to Jesus we find the love and healing of God expressed toward us.  Jesus took on our sins, our weaknesses and our pain (Isa. 53:3-5).  When he touched a leper, he didn't contract leprosy -- the leper was healed!  When he spoke with people, he didn't leave them in their sin and selfishness, but confronted their anthropocentric ways, challenging them to turn away from themselves as idols, and toward God (the Sermon on the Mount, Mat. 5-7, is a good example of that idea, but there are many others). 

Here's the point for today:  your pain, the abuse in your past, your personal or public wound, does not define you.  Only God can define you -- and God says you belong to him, he loves you just like you are right now, and he will love you forever!  Even though you've been wounded by a father figure, God is the perfect definition of all fatherhood, and he knows how to help you perfectly.  Hebrews 12:10 says "For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness." 

God is asking you, right now, to let go of whatever you think keeps you from his "YES" toward you.  Even if you've been saying "No" to him all your life, God says "No" to your "No" and "YES" to you.  His love as a perfect Father will completely make up for any lack of love from your own dad -- and you will find healing in him (Mat. 11:29).  (Next week, we'll look at why the Bible uses the word "father" for God.)