In our 21st Century Western Culture the title 'Father' is not a name. However, we have to try to instead understand the Bible within the cultural context in which it was written, which is first century and Jewish for the New Testament. So God being sovereign, can and sometimes does take words which we wouldn't normally as accept as 'proper names' as his name, for instance the verb; 'to be' in the first person singular continuous tense is used as a proper name at
Exodus 3:14-15. Moses asked God what his name is, and the reply is;
'I AM THAT I AM.' Now in our culture that's crazy as this is a verb and not a proper name. However, God is sovereign and if he chooses to take this as his name, then he's free to do so, by the way the name Yahweh (Jehovah) is a derivation of
'I AM THAT I AM,' so to reject the former as Gods name is to consequently reject the latter.
The Roman Emperor took a mere title; Caesar, which means King or ruler and then choose for many generations to use this as a proper name. But hey it was his choice and we have no right to point the finger from our 21st century Western standpoint and then demand that Caesar isn’t a proper name but is a title. It was a title, but the Emperor choose to use it as a proper name.
The same is true with regard to the names ‘Father’ and ‘Son,’ I agree heartily that these in our culture are titles and not names. However, God has chosen to adopt these titles as his own names, and being God who are we, mere mortals to tell him that we can’t do this because it disagrees with our shallow and highly literalised Oneness Pentecostal theology. At
Luke 11:2 the Lord’s prayer tells us that Father is his name, we never read here;
‘Our father which art in heaven hallowed be thy title,’ which we should read if Father were a title.
Furthermore, throughout the Old Testament, many other people used the designation ‘father’ as a part of their names; As an example of a few Hebrew constructs; ‘abi-asaph’ (
2nd Samuel 23:21), literally reads the ‘father of strength,’ and thus means a strong man. ‘Abi-tub’ (
1st Chronicles 8:8-11), literally reads, ‘the father of goodness’ and so means one who is good. ‘Abi-el’ (
1st Samuel 9:1) means the ‘father of God’, and so implies that he was a Godly man. You see if you don’t attempt to try to understand the Bible within the cultural context in which it was written, then you’ll end up forcing your 21st century literalised American views upon the text of Scripture.
Finally, at
Hebrews 1:4; “
having become so much better than the angels, as He has obtained a more excellent name than they” (
Hebrews 1:4, NKJV), Jesus Christ inherits a name which signifies his position as the father’s heir! What is this name, well the next verse (
Hebrews 1:5, quoting
Psalm 2:7) tells us that this name is SON. So please let’s lay aside the temptation to point the finger at God and to tell him what he must call himself, in accordance with our own predetermined theology, God is sovereign and we should be humble enough to be teachable.
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