STATION 22: BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD
This writing, The Stations of The Cross, is one of many writings which belongs to The Church of Yahweh. The Church of Yahweh is dedicated to spreading the proclamation of God's one True, Holy and Real Name.
The human race has lost touch with this Holy Name, and it is the purpose of this Church to attempt to restore this. The core documents which hope to outline clearly the nature of God's Real Name are "A Simple Overview", "I Will Be Who I Will Be", and , "God is Not God's Name."
If you have not had the opportunity, I would direct you to read these at this time. Without them, this Station of the Cross will be tough to fully appreciate.
What does God's Name have to do with the death and resurrection of Jesus? What does God's name have to do with Christ's passion?
They are exactly the same thing! One reveals and explains the other, it turns out.
Jesus, it is said, "came in the name of the Lord" (Mt 21:9). It was never intended that the word "Lord" would appear in the Bible. The word "Lord" is simply a convenience. It is a ruse; it is a concealment.
Every time you see the phrase "The LORD" in all capital letters in the Bible, especially in the Hebrew Bible, The "Old Testament" (though we hate that term), it is referring to God's name, YHWH, Yahweh.
It is not my purpose here to go into great detail about that name, but rather to discuss how Jesus' life, death and resurrection relate to that name.
The truth is that Jesus' entire life, his teachings, miracles, even his death and resurrection, were all explanations and clarifications of God's Holy Name YHWH.
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of YHWH." You see, Jesus' name was not "Jesus". There is so much ignorance here...God is not God's Name, and Jesus wasn't named Jesus! We sing songs in Church about Jesus. "Jesus, there's something about that name." Well, indeed there is. But, Jesus was not His name!!!
Language lesson time again: "Jesus" is the English version of the Greek word Ieasus, of the Hebrew word Yahshua which was His name. (Did you follow that?!?)
A bit slower now: Jesus is English for a Greek word, "Ieasus." "Ieasus," is what the Greeks called Jesus.
Jesus' original ministry was to the Jews, but over the course of time, Christianity very quickly spread to the Greeks. The Greeks spoke, obviously, a different language. As the message of Christianity passed from the Hebrews to the Greeks, Jesus was no longer called according to His God given Hebrew name, but according to the name that the Greeks wanted to call Him, Ieasus.
Ieasus is Greek for Joshua. Joshua, is the English way that we pronounce Yahshua, pronounced Yah-SHOE-uh. (For the record, you will see this spelled many ways: Jeshua, Yeshua, Yeshuah, Yehshua, Yehshuah, among others. Converting Hebrew to English letters is more of an art than a precise science.)
So here's how it went: Yahshua --> Ieasus --> Jesus.
Yahshua is spelled in Hebrew 
Those are the Hebrew letters we spell Y-H-S-W-H.
Those letters are called Yod (Y), Hey (H), Shin (S), Vav (W) and Hey (H).
And Hebrew is spelled right to left, so "Jesus'" Name, in Hebrew,
is spelled
Now....Where were we....Oh yes. "Blessed
is he who comes in the name of YHWH, blessed is he who comes in
the name of 
.
God The Father has revealed His holy sacred infinite name as
Yod (Y) Hey (H) Vav (W) Hey (H).
Spelled in Hebrew, right to left,
Jesus' name, Yahshua, is spelled Yod (Y), Hey (H), Shin (S), Vav
(W) and Hey (H)
(This is something which, unfortunately probably not one in a hundred people, even inside of religious circles, actually know.)
You take an additional letter, an "S," (which in Hebrew looks like a "w") and you insert it into the very center of YHWH
Spelled in Hebrew, right to left,
As we draw that name vertically it looks like this:
The "Shin" represents the heart. "This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him!"
Now here's the
first thing we must recognize. In the beginning, mankind was
created in the image of Yod Hey Vav Hey, 
.
Adam perfectly reflected God's nature and attributes. That is the proclamation of the book of Genesis. Through the fall, man stopped recognizing this, stopped properly reflecting YHWH's nature and attributes, and through sin and the fall, we became darkened creatures. We lost the ability to reflect God's Holy Name.
Though we were and are created in the image of YHWH, we cease to live that way. So, God came to the Earth to restore the lost balance. YHWH came to the Earth as YHSWH, who was once again the visible image of the invisible God. He is known as the 2nd Adam in St. Paul's writings.
Through His teaching, through His life and His ministry, through His death and resurrection, through, as we've discussed before, being baptized into His passion, we can be remade into the image of God.
That's what Christianity is all about. God's name can be restored within us. Jesus was the representative of God, through whom God could be known, through whom God could be seen, in whom is embodied God's power. Jesus was God's name. Perfectly. And, we too, can be called to be God's name.
But, there is much more. Jesus invokes the holy Tetragrammaton, YHWH. YHWH has a meaning, I am that I am. And, in verse 58 of the Gospel of John, chapter 8, Jesus says to the scribes and Pharisees, "Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am."
This is a direct connection of YHSWH to YHWH. He is claiming God's name for His own. Yod Hey Shin Vav Hey is claiming Yod Hey Vav Hey's name as His own.
is
claiming 's Name as His
own!
Now, it is clear in the writings that Jesus does things in His father's name. It's also clear that He empowers the disciples to ask and do things in Jesus' name. For example, in John 10:25, Jesus says, "I told you and you do not believe the works that I do in my father's name, these bear witness of me."
It is also true in John 14:13, "Whatever you ask in my name that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." YHWH and YHSWH are different sides of the same coin. They are one connected entity.
YHWH is the non-manifested, hidden, transcendent God. YHSWH is the visible, manifest, present God.
You could say that YHWH is potential and YHSWH is kinetic.
Hidden and revealed, spirit and flesh, transcendent and present. These two beings, God the Father, God the Son are united. And, they're united in the name.
What is also remarkable, then, is that Christianity tries to pride itself on being a religion of the Trinity. The Trinity is subject to great debate and discussion, but I will simply show you one thing. Gospel of John 14:26, "When the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name comes, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you." In other words, The Holy Spirit comes in the Name of YHSWH.
It is clear that YHWH and YHSWH are one being united by the invisible spirit, who is also sent in the name of YHSWH.
So what does this name have to do with Jesus? Everything. They share the same name. But, there is indeed much more here.
Jesus has in high priestly prayer in John 17, where in one of His final moments on the Earth, He takes a moment to pray, to speak to God just Before He is taken away. John 17:6 says, "I manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world." This is one of many similar passages wherein we learn that Jesus' life, His teachings, His ministry, is an attempt to explain God's name to the disciples.
The connections are many. I have, for quite some time, contemplated writing a complete Bible study of the life of Jesus, showing how His life, ministry, healings, miracles, and teachings are all manifestations of The Name.
Let me give you a few examples.
- Jesus raised people from the dead. "I will be what I will be." "I am that I am." YHWH, God's holy name, is the power of eternal life, is the power of resurrection. Showing people physically raised from the dead is one indicator of the power of God's name.
- "I am that I am" is a name which we all share, wherein God wants us to be self determinant, not to be possessed in any way. Jesus cast out devils and demons, showing that by the power of God's name, we can be set free. We need to hear that message more than the people of Jesus' day did, for we have more demons now then they ever dreamt possible. We have many more things which lay claim to our soul.
- The entire social order works against nature. It convinces us to do things which we do not believe in and do not truly want. How many people have spent a great portion of their life, only to look back and to wonder how did this ever happen to me? What happened to my life? It seems that countless people spend decades on this earth acting and moving and putting in time but never once actually doing what they truly want to do. That is remarkable. We buy clothes we do not like so that we can look hip. We fashion our hair in ways that we don't personally care for, just so that we can fit in. We buy outrageous things that we do not need and that do not give us any pleasure, just so that we can keep up with our friends, with our neighbors, with our business partners, and with our family members. In fact, from the day we are born until the day we die, our entire life is a battle against demons which attempt to control us. We are told that our feet have horrible odors, that our arm pits stink, that the corns on the bottoms of our feet are ugly, that the dandruff on the top of our heads is unpleasant to look at. All we need is Madison Avenue's chemical salvation in order to be made whole. Women, especially these days, will diet almost to the point of starvation, and then undergo a surgical knife in order to enhance those parts of the body that they deem to be more desirable. We are told what we can say. We are told what we cannot say. We are told what we can do; what we cannot do. We are even told how to think. If we step out of bounds, the demons which possess us will curse us, toss us to the ground, make great spectacles out of us, and cause us incalculable pain. This is demonic possession. And, we must be free. The power of the name, the power of Jesus' ministry was to set us free, "Come to me all who labor and our heavily laden down, and I will give you rest for your wary souls, for my load is easy and my burden is light, come to me."
- Jesus wants to set us free. The power of the name, "I am that I am", "I will be what I will be"--as that name resonates within us, we begin to have our own self will. We can live our lives the way we live them because we want to live them that way, not according to what the government tells us, or what social pressures tell us, or what the family tells us, or what commercialism or advertisements tell us, but what the witness of God upon our hearts as to what is good and right for us, tells us.
- Jesus did, in fact, reveal God's name as He cast out these demons. He performed miracles. These miracles, too, were a revelation, an explanation, a manifestation of God's name. You see, YHWH is the self mover. He is the source and origin of all. He is the cause of all causes, the self-existent one, the source of all with no source. And as such, He has limitless power, can never die. What we call miracles are manifestations of higher bounds of power than we have ever seen before.
- Certainly, if God exists, and I am certain that He does, and this God is capable of creating a universe with a 100 billion galaxies in it, certainly that God could step into time and space and feed 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. The Name is sovereign, the Name is self-existent and contains all power.
- Jesus' parables try to teach us about the Kingdom of God. "I am that I am" seeks only to know what is, because the world is all good.
- And, as Jesus manifested this name to His disciples, He tried to get them to focus on only the here and now, to live each day for today, because every day has trouble enough of its own.
- "I am that I am" is the same yesterday, today and forever. All of His parables about faith, about the Kingdom of God, about planting, about harvesting, are all truly glorious revelations of what God is all about and therefore what His name is all about.
- But, there is more. In Jesus' darkest hour, as He awaits the last supper, He knows that His final hours on earth are at hand. He reaches up to Heaven and utters another prayer. This is in the Gospel of John 12:27,28. "Now my soul has become troubled and what shall I say, Father? Save me from this hour? But for this purpose I came to this hour, Father glorify thy name. There came therefore a voice out of Heaven, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again."
- It is quite astounding to read this simply for what it is. Jesus essentially says in other Gospels, Father not my will, but thy will be done. Here in the Gospel of John, that is equated to Father glorify thy name, not my name but thy name, and the voice from Heaven is astounding: "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again." God is echoing in agreement that the teachings and miracles which Jesus had done were a glorification of God's name.
- But God also indicates that the upcoming passion, the death and resurrection, are also going to be a revelation of that name.
We come then to the central question, for this writing does attempt to focus on Jesus' death and resurrection:
How is it that Christ's passion tells us anything about the Name?
In section 20, we discussed the breath of God, how God died so that we can live, so that we can die, so that God can live. That incredibly powerful revelation is all embodied in The Name. The cycle of the eons, the breath of God, began as Jesus (YHSWH) existed in the form of God (YHWH), but emptied Himself, taking upon Himself a man servant, died to Himself, and was resurrected and returned to the eternal glory with the Father.
You can spell that
YHWH dies, so that
YHSWH can live, so that
YHSWH can die, so that
YHWH can live.
It is all one name! It is all one God!!
This one God pulls Himself apart, if you will, stretches Himself out, so that we might see and understand Him.
He's changed, so that we can hear Him and see Him and touch Him. Just like the ocean bubbles up the rain drops, those rain drops remain ocean water. They, just for a while, pretend not to be. They're separated from the ocean and appear to be autonomous, but are not. So too, the only reality is YHWH. That is the only truth of the universe. He is the source and origin of all, and we live inside of Him. We move inside of Him. We exist inside of YHWH. The Bible could not be more clear about that, if it tried.
Since the only reality is YHWH, then all YHWH can do is spread Himself out, stretch Himself out a bit, so that we can see Him a little clearer. That's what He did. The mighty infinite limitless ocean of YHWH separated off, reduced Himself to become a rain drop as YHSWH. And, that little rain drop died to His self will. And as He did so, He said, "Father glorify Thy Name." And as He died, YHSWH emptied Himself out and returned to the infinite glory of the ocean of YHWH.
Jesus truly was God's name.
When we see Christ upon the cross, we are seeing God's name.
The Father and the Son and the Spirit are one, and that oneness is all embodied within that name.
And YOU, dear friend, are called by that Name.
Truly and indeed, blessed is He who comes in the name of YHWH.
An important email:
"Roger" wrote:
Dear Pastor,
I have read your section on Yeshua being YHWH with Sheen in the middle
YHSWH. I can not find this in my Bible. Could you please give me some verses
to look up. It is most interesting to me as it explains alot.
Thank you.
Rog
Roger E. Nasiff, PhD
My response:
Dear Roger,
Thank you for writing.
You ask a very interesting, and profound, question.
You will not find "YHSWH" in the Bible.
Yeshua's name in the New Testament, of course, is spelled in Greek. "Ieasous". This was supposed to be the greek version of
Yeshua, though many have felt that, as the listeners of the day heard it, they actually heard something very close to
"Eeyay-Zeus", a slang-type phrase meaning "Son of Zeus." I have not been able to find confirmation of this, however.
So, YHSWH is not in the New Testament, nor is it the standard Hebrew Bible way of spelling "Yeshua", or "Joshua".
So, where does it come from, and why do I use it?
Well, the source of spelling the Son's name by inserting a "Shin" into YHWH appears (as far as I can tell) to have been
introduced in the late middle ages by what's known as the Christian Kabbalists. "YHSWH" (and the Hebrew equivalents) is (it's
been explained to me by my Rabbi) an alternative, phonetic spelling of YaHSHuWaH. The Name was spelled that way for
precisely the reason of illustrating the immense closeness of the Father and the Son.
Some are bothered by this "extra-Biblical" name. I am not. Yeshua Himself said He had many things to tell us, but that we
could not bear it. (I frankly find few references to the internet in the Bible.) In short, YHSWH is a gorgeous, marvelous
illustration. Even if it is only an "artist's drawing" of The Son's Name, it is certainly preferable to "Ieasous", which the authors of
the Greek New Testament had no problem using.
That's the best answer I can give you.
Again, I really appreciate your question, and I would love to hear your response.
Thank you, and peace.
Ahyh
