Did you know that there are pages on the web devoted to helping you choose a name for your newborn? One search that I did on boys names delivered this: “Top 1,100 Boy Names for Your Baby Boy in 2023". The criteria used was that the names were “strong, classic, awesome, one-syllable, unique” and on a similar web page, for girl’s names, the criteria was “unique, beautiful, pretty, sweet, or cute”. I didn’t read much of the articles but it appeared to me that what wasn’t on the list of criteria was that the name be an embodiment of the child’s character or life mission.
Therein lay the contrast between how we decide on names verses what we find in the Scriptures. Especially with God, his name was intended by him to be a self-revelation. His very name was to serve a purpose in our lives by becoming a reminder to us of something in him that we could completely rely on as it related to some trouble or difficulty. Or it could become to us something to simply rejoice in that God should be like that.
For example, the Lord reveals himself in various names that, upon translation, mean, "the Lord My Banner”, "the Lord My Provider”, "the Lord My Healer”. One Bible commentator* pointed out that these appears some 30 different times, and he goes on to say that there is one name that the Lord uses for himself about 290 times, some ten times more than the sum of these other self-revelations. Here it is: "the Lord of Hosts”, that is, “the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”
This tells us that by far and away, even more than the other revelations of himself embodied in those precious names, God wants us to know him in the image of a great warrior — the greatest warrior — the Supreme Captain of the armies of heaven.
This can only mean that we must think far more than we do in the language of the apostle Paul when he wrote, “Finally, be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.” (Ephesians 6:10-12 (NET) And we must battle daily against these evil forces not only in the Lord’s mighty power, but in his name as Lord of Heaven’s Armies. We need to know that “having disarmed the powers and authorities he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross”, (Colossians 2:15) Jesus is invincible. In him, we conquer. And our great foe — satan and all his armies — are on the run.
*Francis Frangipane
