Anytime God repeats Himself or someone repeats something about God, it might be important.
How would you like to meet someone who is so different that nothing else is like him? One-of-a-kind, beyond conceivable, distinct, unique? How long would it take for you to grasp this distinctiveness?
The Bible’s The Revelation of Jesus Christ begins with three chapters of messages to particular groups of believers from Jesus before making a change of direction into the presence of God and what is going on in His presence, before Him in heaven. What starts with setting the scene in the first seven verses of Chapter Four, moves into focusing on God. The first pronouncement about Him is His nature: “Holy, Holy, Holy” and then who He is: “The Lord God, the Almighty” and then a third distinction: “Who was, and Who is, and Who is to come”. Have you considered that before all that is to be revealed about what is going on in the scope of the following chapters, first comes focus on the nature of God, the identity of God and the existence of God?
Before the Apostle John, scribe of the book, gets caught up in the unfolding of what he is about to be shown, he is to focus on who God is. And maybe all of us who face God, come into His presence will have the same initial experience. We’ve all heard comments about, “The first thing I’m going to do when I get to heaven is ask God…” but this glimpse of John’s first experience my indicate a change in our expectations. Will our first contact with God be about us or will it be about Him?
Let’s look at what is important enough to be primary:
- “Holy, Holy, Holy” – when the Bible repeats something it is for emphasis on the importance. “Holy” is the Greek ‘hagios’ which is equivalent to an adjective in English and translates ‘distinct’ or ‘set apart’ or ‘exclusively God’s’ or ‘revered’ 1
- “The Lord” “God” “The Almighty” The Lord is ‘kyrios’, noun, master, one who has control over, title of respect God is ‘theos’, noun, deity, pertaining to the things of only and true God when used with “the” The Almighty is ‘pantokrator’, omnipotent, he who holds sway over all things, the all-ruling
- “Who was, and Who is, and Who is to Come”, “ēn”, “ōn”, “erchomai”,verbs for was, is, and to come — not changing state but arriving or making appearance
So, let us submit that God wants us to know that He is distinctive – not like, not comparable – that He is over all else, the Only and True, superior in nature and character over all, and that He continues beyond our understanding of time. He does not become god but is known by His appearances.
The early Jews (Hebrews) understood the distinctiveness of God enough that even when He told them His identity, His Name, they would not speak it out of reverence for Him being so Distinct (Holy).
In the contemporary translations of the Bible, there is a euphemism used to avoid the direct translation of the Name that God used as His proper name. What is spelled in the early Jewish language as יְהֹוָה and which we transliterate as Yahweh appears only four times as GOD, four times as JEHOVAH but over 6,000 times as Lord or LORD depending upon the translation. When Moses had his first encounter with God (Exodus 3) and God wanted Moses to represent him to the Israelites in Egypt, Moses raised several problems. The pertinent one to this point is, Moses speaking, “If I come to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and the ask, ‘What is his name?’, what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” “Say this to the Israelites: “I am has sent me to you.” Three times in verse 14 God identifies Himself as “I am” which is the verb hāyâ in Hebrew. It carries the same sense of continuance as the ‘Who was, and Who is, and Who is to come’ in Revelation albeit a different word, different language. As emphasis which the Israelites would understand more clearly, in verse 15, God says, ‘The Lord , the God of you fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My Name forever, and so I am to be remembered in all generations. The identity with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not transitory but continuing in each generation and the Israelites would not have missed the significance. The “This is My Name” refers back to the proper name of the God of the fathers, Lord which is our translation of Yahweh.2
If God is so distinctive, so different, so separate from our regular points of comparison, might it not be a worthy thought to treat something about Him as special? Maybe that which He says identifies Him, His name? Is He better than “That Good Old Boy”? How casual do we want to think of Lord ?
1 compare Genesis 2:3; Exodus 3:5, 20:11, 30:32; Isaiah 30:15; Matthew 7:6; 1 Peter 1:16, 3:15
2 YHWH is the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew which are the four consonant letters and represents God’s name in the Hebrew. Pronunciation is not intended as Jewish peoples would never speak the Name as it was considered too holy to speak. Typically represented as “Lord ” in English translations (small caps).
