What’s in a Name? — Part One

And I invite you to turn, and no surprise, to the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John, which has now become quite a lengthy experience but, I trust, a profitable one. John 17. The heading is “The High Priestly Prayer” of Christ, and we read from the first verse:

“When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

“‘I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I[’m] not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I[’m] no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I[’m] coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they[’re] not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

“‘I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’”

Amen.

Perhaps just a moment of silence as we come to God’s Word. We have sung to him our prayer, and we say to him: Hear us, O Lord, for Christ’s sake.

Now, this twenty-sixth verse, let me read it again. Jesus says, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Now, as I’ve pondered this verse—and I have done for some time—I’ve decided that it is important that we pause, at least for a moment, and deal with the whole matter of the name to which Jesus refers. You’ll notice even in our hymnody already this morning, there’s been much about the name of God, the name of the Lord Jesus, and so on. And since it is absolutely foundational to the verse, I want to take a little time to unpack that, to help us make sure that we don’t go wrong as we come to the second half of the verse.

On January 8, 1697, at two o’clock in the afternoon, on the gallows in between Leith and Edinburgh, Scotland, a young theology student by the name of Thomas Aikenhead was hanged. What was his crime? Blasphemy. Blasphemy. The Scottish equivalent of the attorney general, James Stewart, the Lord Advocate, addressed the accused in this way: “It is of verity that you, Thomas Aikenhead, shaking off all fear of God and regard to his majestic laws, have now, for more than a twelvemonth, made it, as it were, your endeavor and work to vent your wicked blasphemies against God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.” Now, whatever you want to say about the blasphemy laws of seventeenth-century Scotland, it is very clear that at that point in history, Scotland as a nation was paying very close attention to the third commandment, which reads, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”[1]

And when we begin to read our Bibles, we are immediately made aware of the fact that God jealously guards his name and that he in turn expects those who are his friends to do the same. Now, our Asian and our African friends are much more familiar with this concept than those of us who have grown up in the West. It’s familiar material, territory, for us to attend a conference and to immediately be given a nametag. But the nametag is not in order that it might display our character or declare, really, anything about us. It’s simply there in order to distinguish Bill from Tom or Mary from Jane. But that is not true in other parts of the world, and it certainly wasn’t true in antiquity.

Derek Prime, I remember, on one occasion told the story of an American who was living among the Masai tribe in Tanzania. And this particular man… I’m sorry; it just happens to be an American. There’s nothing in that. It was an American, and I’m an American, so we’re fine. All right. But this American was among the Masai tribe in Tanzania. And the chap, the man, he bandied names around with terrific ease. He would talk about somebody and say their name. Prime writes,

He had to learn that the Masai regarded this as very rude because in public and with strangers they did not use personal names. They chose instead to use titles or designations. One day a Masai man said to him, “Do not throw my name about. My name is important. My name is me. My name is for my friends.”

When someone is dear to us, we do[n’t] like to think of any[body] making fun of [their] name. It is offensive when people gossip … [and] misuse [the] name [of those who are precious to us]. Surely [then] it is inconceivable that … we would demand [from] a friend [what] we would deny to … God [himself]![2]

Now, I begin in that way very, very purposefully. You see, that is why we, saying the Lord’s prayer, the first petition takes us exactly there: “Our Father [who] art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”[3] Now, why is this so important? Because God’s name is more than just a title. God’s name declares his character. God’s name proclaims who God is and what God does.

In fact, realistically, the name of God actually stands for God himself. We live in a culture where the name of God is routinely profaned—profaned by all ages. Listen to children. Profaned in all places! But we ought not to regard this as new, because when you read your Bible, you discover that God’s concern for his name extends all the way from the creation of the world. For example, here’s the Seventy-Fourth Psalm: “Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs, and a foolish people reviles your name.”[4] It’s one of the distinguishing features of what it means to know God, to love God, to serve God.

God’s name is more than just a title. God’s name declares his character. God’s name proclaims who God is and what God does.

What’s in a name? The name actually matters. That’s why it’s quite wonderful when we have the privilege of taking the Psalms and making them our own in praise and in prayer. We find ourselves, as those who love God, saying, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”[5] With the psalmist: “Those who love your name … exult in you.”[6] With the psalmist, as read this morning and carved in granite at the entryway to our building: “You have exalted above all things your name and your word.”[7]

Now, those of you who’ve been reading in Exodus with M’Cheyne will have had occasion, again, in Exodus chapter 3, to be struck forcibly by the amazing encounter at the burning bush between Moses and God. Because it is there, by means of his name, that God declares himself to be self-existing, to be self-determining, and to be sovereign—self-existing, self-determining, and sovereign. Wow! Thomas Manton, from an earlier century, remarks, “He were not God if he were not incomprehensible.”[8] We cannot subject faith to our reason. Faith is the ongoing discovery of the wonders of these things. Moses encounters this, and there it is before him: “Who will I say?” “Who will I say?” He says, “Well, you just tell him that I Am has sent you.”[9] “I Am has sent you.” In other words, “Just tell him who I am.”

The prophets do the same thing. I don’t want to belabor it unduly, but I want to remind you of this. Jeremiah and in chapter 7 or so—it’d better be chapter 7, as I look down. It isn’t in chapter 7, but it is in chapter 10. Some of you had already found that, I know. You just said—I’m surprised you didn’t call out—“Chapter 10, Pastor. Keep looking!”

And what he does in chapter 10 is he distinguishes between the gods of the nations, small g. You remember Paul says there are many gods, or so-called gods,[10] but there’s only one true and living God. And the prophet is doing the same thing. He says the gods of the nations are actually figures of fun. They’re worthless. Jeremiah 10:5:

Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field,
 and they cannot speak;
they have to be carried,
 for they cannot walk.
Do not be afraid of them,
 for they cannot do evil,
 neither is it in them to do [any] good.

But listen to how he addresses the living God:

There is none like you, O Lord;
 you are great, and your name is great in might.
Who would not fear you, O King of the nations?
 For this is your due;
for among all the wise ones of the nations
 and in all their kingdoms
 there is none like you.

Now, we have to lay this down as absolutely foundational. Jesus is praying to the Father. “O holy Father,” he says, “O righteous Father”—perhaps as it comes to the end of the prayer, with a sigh or with a groan—he says, “O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you. But I know you. And these that you have given me know that you sent me. I have given them your name.” Now you get an inkling, now, of what Jesus is saying in saying that. He’s not giving a title to God. He’s making it clear who and what God is.

Now, the Bible makes it clear, and the psalmists help us with this—tells us that the whole of creation declares the mighty power of God’s name. Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament [shows] his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where [his] voice is not heard.”[11] His voice has gone out to the very ends of the earth. It has been displayed today already in Korea, North and South; in Vietnam; in Cambodia; all across the landscape of Western Europe; across the shadows of the morning sun in the West Coast of America; and so on. The voice of God penetrates any barriers. Unspoken truth is declared daily in the universe that God himself has made.

Not only in creation but also in Scripture, the name of God is made clear. Quoting, as I’ve done, helps us with that. Calvin says, “Neither the sun nor the moon, albeit they give clarity to the world”—they help us to see in the night and in the day—“neither the sun nor the moon … reveal the majesty of God as much as the law, the prophets, and the gospel[s].”[12]

Now, you’ll remember that when we studied—at least I say you’ll remember—perhaps you will remember when we studied in Romans chapter 1, we realized that God has made enough of himself available so that all of us are accountable before him,[13] because the secret things about him that he has chosen to reveal are ostensible. They are actually manageable. They are visible. And when we studied it then and when you think about it now, you find yourself saying—at least I do—“Well, why is it, then, that people do not actually acknowledge God as he is?”

And, of course, the Bible answers that question for us. When Paul is writing to the Corinthians and explaining the wonder of salvation, he says, “You should know, however, that the natural man”—that is, man as he is by his nature as a fallen creature—“the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit because they are folly to him. He is not able to understand, because these truths are spiritually discerned.”[14] In other words, as we often say to one another—helped by Rico of old—it is only God who opens blind eyes; it is only God who softens hard hearts. Otherwise, people can sit and listen to this kind of material, and they might as well just go, “La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la,” because—and it may be going in their ears just that way, because it is just an absolute stupidity to them.

Now, yesterday, as I read the Daily Telegraph, I came across a very interesting interview with Robert Harris. Robert Harris some of you will know because you will have read his trilogy on Cicero, others of you because of his book Fatherland or whatever. He’s a British novelist. He’s English. He’s clever. And he is the one who wrote the book Conclave which in turn gave rise to the movie which, apparently, is supposed to win Oscars in the great event that unfolds, I think, this evening. Anyhow, in interviewing him, Harris acknowledged a number of things. I’m bringing this to you purposefully. I hope it’s helpful to you as just a sort of contemporary illustration of what we’re talking about: that by and large, the Christian says, “The name of the Lord is mighty to save”; the non-Christian says, “I don’t believe so, and frankly, I don’t know what the fuss is about.”

He was brought up in an irreligious home. He went just to normal school. He finally studied at Cambridge. But he said in researching Conclave, he said, “I must have read the gospels before in parts but never in sequence.” Then he says this: “[The] revolutionary nature [of the gospels] startled me more than Marx, more than Lenin.”[15] In other words, it rang a bell for him in a way that he didn’t anticipate.

The person says, “So then, are you a person of faith?” “No,” he says, “I am not a person of faith.”[16] Then he says, “I wish that I were. It must be a marvellous thing to go through life believing that there is something else.”[17]

Towards the end of the interview, he references a letter written by Evelyn Waugh, the Catholic novelist, to—1984 fellow—George Orwell. Evelyn Waugh writes to George Orwell, because George Orwell had sent him, Evelyn Waugh, a copy of his new book, 1984. And Harris says when Waugh wrote back to Orwell, he said that his book was deficient because it didn’t contain any mention of the church of Jesus Christ—which, of course, is a fascinating insight. And Harris then says, “You know, and I get something of that,”[18] because “there is a profound human desire for the irrational or [for] the superstitious in all of us,” he says. “And in a funny sort of way, we are more prone [to this] now, because of what is going on around us, [the] things that are not explicable … at any other time.”[19]

Now, you see what’s happening here? The stirring in the mind of this intelligent man is enough to trigger in him a sense, “I should probably pay a little more attention to these Gospels if they meant that much to me.” And then, somehow, in his heart, he says, “But why would I get involved in that—superstitious things, irrational things? After all, I graduated from Cambridge. I’m a child of the Enlightenment, with so many others.” Why does he respond in that way?

Well, it takes us back to a month ago—again, Jeremiah: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom or the strong man boast in his strength or the rich man boast in his riches, but let the one that boasts boast in this: that he knows me, the living God.”[20]

God’s name is declared uniquely, supremely, and savingly in the Lord Jesus, who is the living Word.

You see, this is the great divide, isn’t it? And some listening to my voice now, either immediately or subsequently, you may find yourself somewhere along the passage of time with the fellow whose name I’ve just mentioned. And here is the great understanding that we’re given from the Scriptures about this amazing reality—and this is from my good friend Bruce Milne and his book Know the Truth, which we studied as elders years ago. Why is it as it is? Here we go: “There is … no road from man’s intellectual and moral perception to a genuine knowledge of God.” There is no road, intellectually or morally, to a genuine knowledge of God. “The only way to knowledge of God is for God … to place himself within the range of our perception, and renew our fallen understanding. Hence, if we are to know God, and have any adequate basis for our Christian understanding and experience, revelation is indispensable.”[21]

God’s name is declared in God’s world. God’s name is declared in God’s Word. And God’s name is declared uniquely, supremely, and savingly in the Lord Jesus, who is the living Word. And that brings us to our text for this morning. No joke!

What does Jesus say? Number one: “I made known to them your name.” Now, if you go to the paraphrases like The Message or The Living Bible or J. B. Phillips, you will discover that when you come to a phrase like that—“I made known to them your name”—each of the paraphrasers are trying to help the reader understand what I’ve just been trying to help myself, and you along with me, to understand when we talk about the name of God.

Now, notice that Jesus didn’t say, “I showed them miracles”—which he did. He doesn’t say, “I taught them”—which he did. He doesn’t say, “I explained things to them in parables”—which he did. No: “I made known to them your name.” And what had happened was that those to whom he had made known the name of the Father had a life-changing encounter with the living God.

And incidentally, that’s what’s supposed to happen when we study the Bible. We don’t study the Bible here so that we just have an increase in knowledge or understanding of what it says—that’s important—but in order that we might actually hear the voice of God, understand something of the name of God, and have a direct encounter with God. I mean, that’s miraculous. Yeah! Exactly, it’s miraculous!

Think about these disciples. Think about them. You know their names. We’ve studied them in the Gospels. In many ways, they’re just sort of ordinary folks—fisherman, tax collector, a couple of them brothers, and so on. And Jesus is praying for them. When we think about them, it’s clear that those for whom he prays are not a sampling of, if you like, vaguely religious types, as if a bunch of them were caught up, like in the ’60s, in the hippie movement, and they all decided, you know, to put flowers in their hair—the equivalent of—and got caught up in the excitement and the drama of what was happening with this Galilean carpenter. That’s not who they are. Nor are they a group of fastidious religionists who have committed themselves to structure and to form and to investigation. They’re neither of those things.

In fact, if we want to know who they are, look at verse 6 of our chapter, and 7 and 8, because there Jesus describes who these are and includes those subsequently who become the followers of Jesus then in his prayer, as we’ve gone on to see. Verse 6: “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Exact same thing that he’s saying again in verse 26. John uses synonyms routinely: “manifested” there, “I … declared”[22] here—so, just a different word. It’s the same expression.

I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and [they] have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.

They are, as we’ve seen throughout this prayer, in the world, but they’re not of the world. In other words, they’re living in the same cosmos, but they don’t share the values. They’re living in a world, they’re making their journey through life in a world that doesn’t know God. That’s actually true for us this morning, in the twenty-first century—as true as it was for them. They do not know God; this world does not understand God—see that in verse 25: “O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you…” These disciples are actually hated, as we saw in verse 14: “The world has hated them because they[’re] not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” Jesus had made the Father known.

And here is the sticking point for us, in the culture in which we live—in fact, throughout all of history: the uniqueness of the claims of Jesus Christ. Anybody who is going to take seriously the investigation of the Gospels, of the New Testament as a whole must immediately wrestle with the categorical statements of Jesus in making the Father’s name known. We can’t go through them all, but you know that John begins his Gospel immediately by such a statement in John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”

That’s what Jesus says to his disciples when he’s getting ready to leave them, at the beginning of the sections that we’ve been studying for some time—John 14. “Don’t get unduly worried by this,” he says. “I’m going to prepare a place for you.”[23] And then Philip, like the helpful child in a school who doesn’t understand what is being said and is brave enough to actually say, “I’m not understanding this,” and then everybody else who doesn’t understand it breathes a sigh of relief and acts smug as if they knew the answer to the question… Or is that just me? Anyway, remember what he says to him: “Philip, have I been so long with you, and you don’t even get this? He who has seen me has seen the Father.”[24] Wow! Same thing in Matthew 11:27: “No one knows the Son”—no one knows Jesus—“except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

To become a disciple of Jesus is not simply to believe that what Jesus says is true, but it is to trust him as a person.

“Oh,” says somebody, “but maybe I’m not one of those that he’s chosen to reveal it to!” Now, you can go and read this on your own and check and see if this is right, but immediately after verse 27 of Matthew 11 comes verse 28—which ought not to be a surprise! Only those to whom the Father has revealed him. What does he then say? “Come to me.” “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest”[25]—the uniqueness of Christ’s work in the revelation of the Father, along with the immensity of the appeal of the Son, in order that men and women, in lostness, in brokenness, in discouragements, in fearfulness, may find, actually, rest for their souls.

You see, to become a disciple of Jesus (those for whom Jesus prays) is not simply to believe that what Jesus says is true, but it is to trust him as a person—to believe that who he says he is, he is. And, if you remember, John tells us before the end of his Gospel that the reason that he has given to us the Gospel is in order that we might consider these things and that we might come to believe and, by believing, we might “have life in his name.”[26] “In his name.” And what does that mean, “in his name”? In who he is: the God of salvation. Not a title. A reality!

When John gets to writing his letter, at the end he says, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you [might] know that you have eternal life,”[27] because, he says, “we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and [he is] eternal life.”[28]

It’s in that same chapter that—it’s in the same chapter!—that John says, “We know that we are from God, and the whole world [is] in the power of the evil one.”[29] We’re from God, and the whole world’s in the power of the Evil One. Wow! That’s a sermon on its own.

So, I guess we just stop. We can come back to it. It’s time.

If we’re going to tell our friends we’ve come to the garden and the glory, the real story, we have to be prepared to tell them the real story: The world that God made is alienated from God. The world that God made is under the judgment of God, because we live in revolt against God. God is a God of love, a God of mercy, a God of grace, a God of justice, and a God who pursues us, and pursues us in order that we might be overwhelmed by his love—and I have to leave this till next time, but overwhelmed by his love.

Surely that is what happened to John Newton of “Amazing Grace,” right? Eventually, when he became a minister, he traces it back, he says, to the prayers of his mother—that in the raging seas of his blaspheming life as a slave trader, in the depths of the ocean he recognizes, “If I go down in this ship, I am gone forever.” It’s then that the recollection of his mother’s prayers comes to him. And he, who had spent essentially the greater part of his life to that point running away from God, came to be possessed by God. The one from whom he’d been hiding became his friend. And he wrote the hymn “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds.” He only used it as a cuss! “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear. It heals his sorrows, deals with his wounds, drives away his fear.”[30]

“I have made known your name, Father, to them.” Do you know God? Do you believe? Is his name a treasure to you?

Let us pray:

God our Father, thank you that the Word of God is a lamp;[31] it shines out, shows up all kinds of things, and some of them comfortable, many of them uncomfortable. It is to your Word we want to listen. It is to the call of Jesus that we want to bend our ears. It is to help us understand the extent of the wonder of your love. Hear us, Lord, as you know our hearts right now and as we come to you, that we might, in childlike trust, lay hold upon your promise that if we will come to you, we will find rest for our souls.[32] And we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

[1] Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11 (ESV).

[2] Alistair Begg, Pathway to Freedom: How God’s Laws Guide Our Lives (Chicago: Moody, 2003, 2021), 82.

[3] Matthew 6:9 (KJV).

[4] Psalm 74:18 (ESV).

[5] Psalm 8:9 (ESV).

[6] Psalm 5:11 (ESV).

[7] Psalm 138:2 (ESV).

[8] Sermons upon the Seventeenth Chapter of St John, in The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (London: James Nisbet, 1873), 11:133.

[9] Exodus 3:13–14 (paraphrased).

[10] See 1 Corinthians 8:5.

[11] Psalm 19:1–3 (KJV).

[12] John Calvin’s Sermons on the Ten Commandments, ed. and trans. Benjamin W. Farley (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 95.

[13] See Romans 1:19–20.

[14] 1 Corinthians 2:14 (paraphrased).

[15] “Robert Harris: If I Wrote a Book About Trump, No One Would Believe It,” interview by Peter Stanford, The Telegraph, March 1, 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/author-robert-harris-interview-trump-is-an-elected-king.

[16] Harris. Paraphrased.

[17] Harris.

[18] Harris. Paraphrased.

[19] Harris.

[20] Jeremiah 9:23–24 (paraphrased).

[21] Bruce Milne, Know the Truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1982), 20.

[22] John 17:26 (KJV).

[23] John 14:1–2 (paraphrased).

[24] John 14:9 (paraphrased).

[25] Matthew 11:28 (paraphrased).

[26] John 20:31 (ESV).

[27] 1 John 5:13 (ESV).

[28] 1 John 5:20 (ESV).

[29] 1 John 5:19 (ESV).

[30] John Newton, “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” (1779). Lyrics lightly altered.

[31] See Psalm 119:105.

[32] See Matthew 11:29.