Honoring the Name

Passage: Leviticus 24:10-23

When my wife and I got married we committed to loving, honoring, and cherishing one another. One of the concrete expressions of this commitment we adopted was the practice of speaking about each other in a way that reflected our care and respect for each other. Honoring each other with our words. Over the course of our marriage this has taken multiple forms: speaking positively about each other to other people; refusing to air grievances we may have with each other with anyone else before we’ve first addressed them as a couple; refraining from sharing belittling stories or facts about each other publicly for the sake of making other people laugh. We have seen the ways these practices have strengthened our loyalty to each other and deepened our sense of connection. In refusing to misuse each others' names, we have experienced a degree of unity that would have been eroded had we been less careful to do so.

In the third commandment God demands that his people not misuse his name. God does so because he has done his people the tremendous honor of giving them a proper name by which to address him. “YHWH”, best pronounced “Yahweh” (not “Jehovah”, which is a misinterpretation of the Hebrew that should never be used), is the closest anyone in the ancient world gets to a first name for God. God’s gift of this personal term is tantamount to God offering his people a personal relationship. God does not belong to the anonymous, distant ranks of the false deities of Israel’s neighbors. He is real; he is present; he invites intimate communion.

God tells his people that if they misuse his name – by speaking casually about him as though behind his back; by invoking his name as a way of co-opting his power and authority; or by saying things about him that aren’t true – they will suffer deadly consequences. God underscores this by commanding the execution of a young man who curses God’s name.

Over time people have become casual about the language they use to address God. We no longer use the proper name God gave the Israelites. We simply say, “God”. This in turn has become a term that is used in a variety of settings that have very little to do with the God who reveals himself in the Bible. We’re so accustomed to the over- and misuse of this term that we barely react. After all, we’ve never seen lightning strike after someone says, “Oh my god!” Maybe it isn’t a big deal.

The reality is that misusing God’s name (whatever name you use to address the God of the Bible) is as deadly as it ever was. It’s just deadly in more gradual, less sensational way than we read about in the Old Testament. What we’re reminded of again and again is that salvation is given to us in the form of an intimate relationship with God. That this is a relationship that demands our commitment. And that our love and respect for God is something that must be protected and nurtured. To appeal to God with a word in one sentence and to turn and curse using the same word in the next says a great deal about how seriously you take God. To speak of God in a way that diminishes his majesty, glory and grace is to disregard how important God is not only to you, but to the world you live in. Over time, misusing God’s name will do to your relationship with him what telling jokes about your wife or husband will do to your marriage: chip away at it until there’s nothing left. The difference is that life without God is death.