THEME FOR BIBLE LESSONS FOR FIRST QUARTER, 2019

NAMES OF JEHOVAH

Greetings in this brand new year! I trust your soul will be filled with fresh enthusiasm and renewed courage as we start a brand new study together. As I prepared for this quarter I felt like I had been given a special, surprise gift. The inspiration was to take a closer look at how God has revealed Himself to His people by manifesting different aspects of His Name in and through the various circumstances of life. What I discovered made me weep with joy!

I pray that as you study each lesson your love and admiration for our wonderful Jehovah God will increase and your faith will soar as you too discover the amazing truths contained in His Name.

—Sis. Angela Gellenbeck

Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Exodus 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

Exodus 34:5 And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

Deuteronomy 10:17 For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great

God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:

I Timothy 6:14 That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:

15 Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords;

16 Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.

Revelation 19:11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.

13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

MEMORY VERSE: Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. —Acts 2:36

CENTRAL THOUGHT: Jehovah Elohim of creation, the El Shaddai of the patriarchs; and the I AM THAT I AM of the Israelites is the same Lord Jesus Christ of the New Testament and is eternally Lord of lords and King of kings.

WORD DEFINITIONS

Genesis 2:7 “LORD God”: “Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures two chief names are used for the one true divine Being—ELOHIM, commonly translated God in our version, and JEHOVAH, translated LORD. Elohim is the plural of Eloah (in Arabic Allah); it is often used in the short form EL (a word signifying strength), as in EL-SHADDAI, God Almighty, the name by which God was specially known to the patriarchs…” (Smith’s Bible Dictionary).

Exodus 3:14 “I AM THAT I AM”: “A name that denotes what he is in himself, I AM THAT I AM. This explains his name Jehovah, and signifies, 1. That he is self-existent: he has his being of himself. 2. That he is eternal and unchangeable, and always the same, yesterday, today, and forever. 3. That he is incomprehensible; we cannot by searching find him out: this name checks all bold and curious inquiries concerning God. 4. That he is faithful and true to all his promises, unchangeable in his word as well as in his nature; ‘Let Israel know this, I AM hath sent me unto you. I am, and there is none else besides me.” All else have their being from God, and are wholly dependent upon him. Also, here is a name that denotes what God is to his people” (Matthew Henry Commentary).

Deuteronomy 10:17 “Lord”: Adhonai; from Hebrew adon; one possessed of absolute control. “This name belongs to God by preeminence; and in this sense ought never to be given to any creature. Jesus Christ, as the Messiah, the Son of God, and equal with the Father, is often called Lord in Scripture, especially in the writing of Paul. The word LORD, in the English Bible, when printed in small capitals, stands always for JEHOVAH in the Hebrew” (ATS Bible Dictionary). “The Jews took seriously the third commandment ‘Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain’ (Exodus 20:7) and so, to keep from speaking the holy name carelessly, around 300 B. C. they decided not to pronounce it at all; but whenever in reading they came to it they spoke the word adhonai which means ‘Lord.’ Consequently in the KJV, LORD occurs instead of Jehovah, whereas ASV renders the name ‘Jehovah’’ (Zondervan’s Pictorial Bible Dictionary).

LESSON BACKGROUND

As expressed in Word Definitions, the LORD God is the name used for the creator God from the beginning. When He appeared to Moses at the burning bush, He identified Himself as the God (Elohim) of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and when Moses asked by what name he should announce Him to the children of Israel, He told him, “I AM THAT I AM,” meaning that Jehovah Elohim was the same one who was now addressing Moses; I AM coming from the infinitive “to be”—the self-existent One. Adonay, or Adonai, meaning Lord, is also the title given to God in the Old Testament, and was translated “kurios” by the Septuagint (Greek) writers. In the New Testament, Kurios is the name used in the title given to Jesus Christ.

When Jehovah wrote, for the second time, the Ten Commandments upon two new tables of stone, He descended unto Moses on the mountain and passed by him, proclaiming and describing the character of the name of the Lord (Exodus 34:5-7). Moses, recalling this event in Deuteronomy, again described the Lord of Lords and the God of gods.

Paul wrote to Timothy a description of the Lord Jesus Christ, calling Him the King of kings and Lord of Lords. In the series of visions John saw while on the Isle of Patmos, Jesus was once again proclaimed to be the King of kings and Lord of Lords. He was also given these titles: Faithful and True and the Word of God.

Peter, preaching to the crowd of Jews on the day of Pentecost, affirmed, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus, who was crucified, had been made, or lifted up as, Lord and Messiah (Christ). When he said that, the people were “pricked in their hearts” and began to say, “What shall we do?” resulting in the establishing of the church of God: three thousand souls were born into Zion.

—Sis. Angela Gellenbeck

DISCUSSION:

1. His Name: By what name was God known at creation? At Moses’ calling? At the second writing on the stone tables?
2. In Greek: What word was translated “Kurios” in the New Testament, and to whom does it refer?
3. Description: Name the terms in our lesson that describe God’s character.
4. Lord and Messiah: To whom was this title given?

COMMENTS AND APPLICATION

Our lesson today explores the connection between the God of creation, Jehovah Elohim, and the Lord Jesus Christ of redemption, with His names, titles and character qualities revealed to His people in the ages between creation and crucifixion. What a wonderful, never- ending study, the surface of which we have only touched in this brief lesson!

I remember the connection being made in my teenage years by an anointed message, “I AM.” The minister began by reading Pilate’s question to Jesus, “What is truth?” The definition of truth, the minister stated, is “That which really IS.” Then he read where God answered Moses’ question about His identity. “I AM THAT I AM”

“I AM.”

“That which REALLY IS.”

Jesus told His disciple, Thomas, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6, emphasis added).

Only in receiving the crucified and risen Jesus Christ as YOUR Lord and Savior can you come to know the Lord God of creation as King of kings and Lord of lords! Bow before Him today!

—Sis. Angela Gellenbeck

REFLECTIONS

“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” 1 Timothy 3:16.

A ex-member of the organization known as Jehovah’s Witnesses once told me that before coming out of that sect, he had been asked by one of their leaders to present a Bible lesson on “Why We Should Worship Jehovah—Not Jesus Christ.” After searching the scriptures, the member concluded there was nothing in the Word of God that forbids the worship of Jesus.

The fact is, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, IS ALSO JEHOVAH GOD! He verified this when he declared to the unbelieving Jews, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58, emphasis added). Jesus did not refrain from acknowledging who He is. He is the second person of Jehovah, the great I AM. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; … And again, when he [Jehovah God, the Father] bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. … But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom” (Hebrews 1:1-3, 6, 8).

How much clearer could the scriptures be? Here God, the Father, declares His Son to be God also! The night before His crucifixion (John 14:8b-9), Philip said to Jesus: “Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?” After seeing Jesus following His resurrection (John 20:28), doubting Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus accepted that acknowledgment.

Not once while here in the flesh did Jesus ever refuse worship. Instead, He even declared that the Father had committed all judgment unto Him, “That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him” (John 5:23; see also verses 21-22 and 26-27). The wise men worshiped Him at birth (Matthew 2:11). The man He healed, who had been blind from birth, worshiped Him (see John 9:35-38).

In comparing Hebrews, chapter one, with the account of creation in Genesis, chapters one and two, we must conclude that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all involved in the creation of the world and of mankind. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26, emphasis added.) Although separate and distinct in person, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one in entity and deity.

“In one accord, oh, praise the Father’s name! With songs of triumph magnifiy the Son, And give the Spirit just and equal fame; Oh, glorify the Holy Three in One!” (Evening Light Songs #54, verse 4.)

—Bro. Harlan Sorrell