NAMES IN THE HOUSE OF GOD
[p. 62] NAMES IN THE HOUSE OF GOD
John 17: 26; Genesis 35: 6 - 15; 2 Kings 2: 4
I wish to speak about the idea of a name as it is seen in the Scriptures, and of how, as regards God and as regards ourselves as believers, it enters into God’s house. The idea of a name is, as it were, stamped on the house. I hope to show how it applies to every believer from the divine standpoint. The name of each is called as he is baptised; he is baptised “to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. The great thought of name is before him as seen in a divine Person in revelation. His own name is mentioned, but only in a potential way, for before baptism there can be little worth naming in the believer. What is in the divine mind, which is to be developed always, corresponds with the great thought of the name as presented-”the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. The thought of the name connects powerfully: the nations are to be baptised unto it. The nations have each their men worthy of distinction and renown, and their names have a great place in the nation as unregenerate, but baptism implies that they are now regarded in their true light; that is of no value morally. The believer would never seek a place nationally. The idea in baptism is another world. God always had the idea of a world in His mind, it has taken form already in Christ, involving renown, and a name according to God. So all our thoughts as to name are henceforth, as baptised, to be in that relation. God’s world takes form now in the house of God, which is a provisional thought, and belongs to circumstances relating to us; it affords present enjoyment of what we go on to finally. All the features of that world are to be known now in the house. I may say here, that [p. 63] baptism does not of itself introduce into the house, but it introduces into the realm in which that name is prominent, the divine name, for there is only one name, that of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; it does not say names (see Matthew 28: 19). Baptism introduces into that, and it sets the believer up in that relation; he finds what the name means for his own soul. The Lord says, “I have made known to [p. 71] them thy name, and will make it known”, it is one thing to be baptised unto the name, and another that it should be made known by the One who alone can make it known, that is the Son. “I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known”; that is, there should be absolute certainty that it is made known in us; and then He adds, “That the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them”, John 17: 26.
The believer is thus brought into that which is the highest order of love, namely, the love the Father has for the Son; that kind of love is to be in them, “the love with which thou hast loved me”, and correspondingly He adds and “I in them”. The Lord is in us, in our affections as thus known, in such an exalted love as that, that which the Father has for the Son. We are able to love the Son in some measure as the Father loves Him: it is that kind of love. Therefore, dear brethren, that is the way the name comes out, it stands in relation to love; everything must work back to that, to what God is. Each of us acquires a name of distinction in that way, and what a variety there would be, each having his own distinction; I want you to take that in to begin with. Christianity began with the assertion that there were a certain number in the upper room in Jerusalem, “The crowd of names who were together”, not a number of believers, or saints, or brethren, but of names. Everyone had a distinction, and that is what is meant in the salutations in the epistles, as bringing out the distinctions in the [p. 64] brethren in each locality, that distinction being the outcome of love shown in some particular way. If I do not love I am nothing; if I do love, it is noted in heaven.
I want to show you how all that worked out in Genesis, so that we may see how we come into the realm of love, which is the house, where these great thoughts have their fulness. You will remember how the thought of name arose with Cain. We have the thought of the giving of names from the very beginning of creation: “the darkness he called Night” and so forth, but when we come to man, He “called their name Adam”, Genesis 5:2. That is said of the man and the woman: He “called their name Adam”. But as yet there are not exploits or distinctions acquired through exploits; Cain begins that; he built a city and the idea of name comes into evidence, for he called it after the name of his son. There you get the germ of the word, in the idea of a man calling a city after the name of his son, and that thought runs on to Babel, where men said, “Let us make ourselves a name”. Over that God writes confusion “Therefore was its name called Babel”-confusion. Men give titles but there is nothing moral, nothing that deserves the recognition of heaven in them. Christians aspiring to them just add to the confusion. If a christian aspires to something to which a man who has no regard for God aspires, see the company he is in! Confusion is written over it, whether it applies to a christian or an unregenerate man.
So you get the idea first with Cain, then with the progeny of angels and the daughters of men; these were the men of renown, the heroes of ancient times. Men have searched into these things, and have spent their lives to establish facts in regard to these matters, but the further to the root of them we get, the more objectionable they are found to be, the less fit to be named in the mouths of holy men and women. “These [p. 65] were the heroes, who of old were men of renown”, men whose names were revered and even worshipped down the ages, but whose origin is enough to show anybody how unfit they are to be regarded by those who love Christ.
Then we find the thought carried through to Babel, the idea showing that collectively what is seen in every nation in the way of patriotism and nationalism has to be discounted, along with the other names of which I have spoken; baptism requires it. “Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, the top of which may reach to the heavens; and let us make ourselves a name”. There was no thought of going through into heaven, it was simply for conspicuousness; and God has written Babel, confusion, over it. That is enough for the christian. He comes to see negatively that divine distinction is not confusion. You leave all that which is marked by Babel behind, and enter upon that which is marked by divine order. Although the word ‘crowd’ is used by the Spirit in Acts 1, in connection with names, it is no discredit to the hundred and twenty; heaven has put honour on every one of them, that is how it will be in eternity; each will be marked off by the evidence of love, and the work of God in them. However great the number, and it will be great, there will be no confusion. Everyone will be like Christ, but everyone will have his own distinction and be recognisable, so there will be no confusion there.
Commencing with the name given to the city we have the use of names according to God on moral grounds; there are names given creationally, and there are names that come out in a moral sense. Seth calls his son’s name Enosh, that is no distinction, he is just a frail, mortal man; there is no distinction. What intelligence that implies! That is where baptism fits in; he would claim no distinction. Graveyards show that death is very callous and makes nothing of men.
[p. 66] Enosh is a landmark, dear brethren, and each of us has to understand what it means: mortal man, dying man. There is no distinction. And the scripture adds, “Then people began to call on the name of Jehovah”, Genesis 4: 26. It is a matter of no distinction, people began to call on the name of Jehovah. The name of Jehovah is set over against a name that means nothing as regards distinction! That is an epoch, you begin there: “Then people began”; it is on the divine calendar. That particular time was the beginning of a great era, when man, hitherto dark, had begun to call on the name of Jehovah. I hope everyone here understands that we have to call on that name, for that is where we begin to get distinction, and a distinction that runs on into eternity. It is implied in baptism.
Then as you come down the line you come to Shem, who was contemporary with the men of renown spoken of in Genesis 6. His name means ‘name or renown’, it is something; and his father’s name was something, for Noah means ‘rest’. Shem means renown but not as we have been speaking of it in connection with Cain and Babel. Shem was the second son of Noah, he was said to be the brother of Japheth the elder, and Ham was the youngest. I want you to notice that, dear brethren, because the line of Shem includes all the names of glory in relation to Abraham’s line; so that the name given to him was substantial; there was something there. Shem led in the hiding of his father’s nakedness, an important matter in this thought of name. Anyone given to exposing, or criticising, or making little of the brethren, or doing or saying anything that discredits the brethren is unworthy of a name; that name shall perish. Shem was the opposite of that, and so we find that when the genealogies are given with Japheth and Ham, Shem’s is given last in chapter 10, but then it is given by itself in chapter 11. That is to say, the true idea of [p. 67] name is brought in by the Spirit of God as Babel is written on all else. We want to get on to that line, dear brethren, and remain in it, there is renown and increase in it: “Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem”, Genesis 9: 26.
I want to dwell upon how it works out in Jacob, that is the manner in which it is worked out in each believer. Jacob is the believer viewed as difficult to manage; every true believer says, ‘That is I, difficult to manage’. You must never say a brother is beyond managing; he may be difficult, but he is not too difficult for God. Alas! for him if he is especially difficult. Jacob was a difficult man and his family was a difficult family, yet you get the house of God in connection with him. [p. 70] It is as if God would say, ‘Difficult as he is, I will make him a trophy to shine in My house’. But then he has got to come to it that he is a difficult man. The most difficult man is the man who has not come to it; but Jacob did come to it. There is no time to go into details, but he came to it that he was a very difficult man, a man making a name for himself by riches, a man who went into business to build a name for himself. Jacob did that for twenty years; he went into business and was successful in business. But then success in business will never give you a name in the house of God; it will only detract from any little spirituality you may have. So when Jacob came back from Padan-aram, he sent a message to his brother and gave him an inventory of his wealth. The messengers returned to Jacob and told him that Esau was coming to meet him with four hundred men, which did not bode any good for Jacob! The great wealth of Jacob could be of no avail when Esau met him with four hundred men. So God meets Jacob, and He cripples him. That is what I want to speak of, dear brethren; a man may spend twenty years and make great wealth, and come back with it with the thought that it will add something to [p. 68] him spiritually, whereas it is the very opposite; it all has to come down, it is absolutely useless in the house of God. Difficult as Jacob was, he was not too difficult for God; God loves to show how He can take the most difficult, and make him shine in His house in spite of the difficulty. That is what God is doing today. Who is not difficult? If you say you are not difficult, you cannot bring greater evidence as to how difficult you are! Some people are amiable, nice and genteel, and they think that is something for God; but it is just what they are naturally, and that has to go, it is no good for the house of God. So God meets Jacob, and cripples him; you know the history. God takes on this difficult man definitely, but then Jacob puts himself in the way of being taken on. He prayed, and God met him.
I want now to come to Jacob’s entrance into the house, and what is more beautiful than to see a christian, hitherto difficult and occupied with moneymaking, to see that man brought into accord with the mind of God, wending his way to the house of God? That is chapter 35. Jacob is on his way to the house; I hope everybody here tonight is! There are many nominally in fellowship who never have wended their way by the Spirit of God into the house, or taken their place in it intelligently according to God. See how Jacob after all this extraordinary experience at Peniel built a house for himself at Succoth! A man makes his pile and builds his house, gets a bit of a show-place; he may have an altar there, may even have his Bible reading in the morning; he may attend the meetings, and call his altar by the name of El-Elohe-Israel, God, the God of Israel. You may say, ‘What a fine man that is; he does not go in for the world’. But there he is at Shechem, he is not in the house. He may attend the meetings but he is not in the house characteristically. He may be in it abstractly, but he is not in it characteristically.
[p. 69] We see that God loved Jacob in spite of all, even though he was a difficult man. God loved him, and says to him, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there”. Genesis 34 is full of disgrace, but God takes advantage of the disgrace; we may thank God for it if it leads Jacob into the house. We would not encourage the conduct seen in that chapter, but God uses the very disgrace to induce Jacob to go into the house. God makes His own terms, He says, “Go up to Bethel ... and make there an altar unto the God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother”, Genesis 35: 1. That is to say, God is now linking on two things; He is linking on Jacob’s first spiritual experience in connection with the house, with the second spiritual experience into which He is going to bring him. When you reach the house you get your name and you begin to review your history from its beginning. I urge on everyone here to do that. Go back over your history, and see how God has worked with you with the result that you abominate your conduct, and magnify the work of God. You never cease while here to be a repentant sinner.
Jacob goes to his household and says, ‘Put away your gods’; no doubt he knew they were there ‘Purify yourselves and change your garments’, and they did it. Then he goes to Luz, that is Bethel in the mind of God. God would have the idea of Bethel, the house of God, in our minds prominently. Jacob builds an altar there, and calls the place, not the altar, El-beth-el. At Shechem he called the altar El-Elohe-Israel, that was what he built; but he did not make the house of God: God makes the place, so he calls the place El-beth-el. The Spirit of God says of El-beth-el, that it is where God appeared to him when he fled from his brother. The brother is a link all through, as if throughout these chapters God would have Jacob never to forget his brother; that is essential.
It is as if God would say to Jacob, I would never have you forget your brother and his wrath, and how you fled from his presence, but I stood by you. If the brethren hate me, God stands by me, but I must not forget. Jacob called it El-beth-el; he reverted back to chapter 28, connecting the whole matter with the wrath of Esau and his fear of it. He was not a fit person for the house of God when he was fleeing from his brother; that must be settled first. It was, thank God, for he met his brother and was figuratively reconciled with Esau before he reached Bethel. That is one side of the picture, that is chapter 33. Then in chapter 35:9 - 15 we have a paragraph which gives us God’s view of this whole matter; it is an abridgement of what happened after Jacob came back from Padan-Aram, without giving the details of the history belonging to it. I wish, dear brethren, to point out what these verses really mean. They are the bringing together of the revelation of the divine name, the name of God, and the name of the believer, to show that they agree. The house of God is where God is, and where there is nothing that is not in accord with His mind; that is what the house of God really is. It is the bringing together of God Almighty and Israel. Almighty means He is here in the power of the Spirit, the power that wrought in Christ in raising Him from the dead. The almightiness of God is the power of the Holy Spirit that is here today; that power works in us, the believer is in accord with that; he is a prince. God has almighty power, He is God Almighty! He is in the house, and the believer has power there of that kind, not of any other. If one says, “Lord Jesus”, he says it in the power of the Spirit of God; if one says, “Father”, he says that by the Spirit of adoption; if he ministers he speaks in the house by the power of the Spirit of God. We may carry that on to the New Testament; the Lord says in John 17, “I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known; that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them”. The complete correspondence there is in the way of love between the Father and the saints. The same kind of love, the most exalted, is the love the Father has for the Son, and that is in the saints. Christ is in the affections of the saints, as He is in the affections of God.
So you find here it does not say that Jacob names the place Beth-el, because it is where God appeared to him when he fled from his brother: No! that is shut out in these verses; Esau’s wrath has gone into oblivion, it has no place in the house. It would be a terrible thing to bring the idea of hatred among the brethren into the house, it has no place there. Why then does he call the name of the place Beth-el? Because it was “where God had talked with him” (verse 15); that is the place now, the place where God speaks with us. Have we all understood this experience? It is a question of the place where He speaks with us. He has had us in the house on His own terms; it is a place suitable to Him, and He speaks in that place, Beth-el. The house of God is the place where God speaks to His people, and goes up from them. I hope the Lord will help us to see what it is to be in the house, not in the place where He appeared to me in relation to the wrath of my brother, but where He speaks with me Himself, telling me about Himself. What does He say about Himself? He discloses His name, He speaks about Himself; and then He speaks about Jacob, and changes his name. He says to Jacob, Under these circumstances you can multiply. Think of a multiplication of a Jacob like this! That is the kind of thing in the house, the multiplication of persons: “Be fruitful and multiply”. This corresponds with Psalm 113: 9, “He maketh the barren woman to keep house, as a joyful mother of sons”. Here it is not only the housekeeping, but [p. 72] the person in it, such a person as God could speak with, in a place suitable for such holy conversation. Think of the holiness involved, the disclosure of the name of God, and then the disclosure of the believer’s name, of how heaven regards you! I do not know anything more interesting and important than that we should understand this; hence Jacob not only calls the place now by its proper name, but he sets up a stone pillar. It is not a stone to be on, as in chapter 28, but the point is the material of the pillar, a pillar of stone, it is durable, something to last. I see now that I am to last, not only in the house, but that I am a stone in the house. The Son abides for ever in the house. The idea of a stone is permanency. Then Jacob pours on the stone “a drink-offering, and poured oil on it”. He not only anoints it but he says virtually, I am going to stay, and God is pleased to have me stay. The Son abides in the house for ever. “If therefore the Son shall set you free, ye shall be really free”, John 8:36. I am free in the house. Now I want you to see what Elisha is in Bethel, in 2 Kings 2. Elisha is the believer, and Elijah is the representative of God. The time had come for Elijah to be taken up to heaven in the whirlwind. He went from Gilgal to Bethel with Elisha. The first point reached is Bethel, then Jericho, and then the Jordan from where Elijah ascended. But I am speaking now of Bethel and I want to link Bethel here with Genesis 35. There are two persons here in Bethel and in Genesis 35 we have two persons, Jehovah, God Almighty, and Jacob; and they are conversing at Bethel. That is not at the street corner, nor is it the worthless talk which, alas!, is often current among us. The conversation at Bethel means spiritual, holy converse. Now Elijah is speaking to Elisha, and for the first time he addresses him by name, he says, “Elisha”. That is a beautiful thing to understand in the house of God. The representative of God is there in Elijah,
[p. 73] and myself. I am addressed by name, I am known now; it is not simply ‘that brother or sister who was converted at such and such a place; I do not know his name’. Heaven never speaks like that, heaven is perfectly conversant with you from your beginning; heaven knows your name and regards you according to the work of God. You need have no feeling because this or that brother does not call you by name; that is his limitation, not yours. We must all admit our limitations, but heaven has none; your name is known there, everyone is known in heaven. In heaven there is no such thought as confusion as at Babel; everyone has his own distinction. There will be myriads there, and everyone will be distinguishable. So in the house, Elijah calls Elisha by name, he says, Elisha! It is the only mention of it in this section, and it brings out what I am saying, that your distinction is known, and the house is the place to call attention to it, the distinction is recognised. You will find that constantly in the New Testament. Take “Simon, a Cyrenian, coming from the field, the father of Alexander and Rufus”, Mark 15: 21. Who are they? Known persons; they would not be mentioned in that way if it were not so. Everyone is known according to his spiritual distinction; the point is to have a spiritual distinction. Elisha had a spiritual distinction.
That is what I had in my mind, that we might understand how names enter into the house, the thought of a divine name-the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and then the names of the saints. God help us to take up these things and understand how spirituality enters into the house.