The Record of God’s Name

Great art thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised!

Thou hast made the earth by thy power. Thou hast established the earth by thy wisdom. By thine understanding thou hast stretched out the heavens. When thou dost utter thy voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens. Thou causest the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. The lightnings with rain thou dost make. Thou bringest forth the wind out of thy treasuries.

Thou didst set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, making for thyself a name. Thou didst bring forth thy people Israel out of their bondage with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm, and with great terror. Thou didst give to them the land that was sworn to their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey. They came in and possessed it. Thou didst cause thy people Israel to ride upon the high places of the earth and to eat of the increase of the fields. Thou didst make them to suck oil out of the flinty rock, feeding them with the butter of kine, the milk of sheep, the fat of lambs, rams bred of Bashan, the choicest of wheat, and the pure blood of grapes.

Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O Jehovah—thou art great, and thy name is great in might—who would not fear thee, O king of the nations?

Thou art God!

El Shaddai art thou. Terrible power and strength are in thy almighty hand. Yet once, it is a little while, and thou wilt shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry lands—all nations! Might and wisdom are met together in thee. As thou hast determined the end from the beginning, so thou upholdest all things by the word of thy power and workest all things after the counsel of thine own will. When thou speakest, “Be fruitful and multiply!” thy blessing infallibly comes. None is able to withstand thee. When thou speakest, “Depart from me, ye cursed ones!” thy word makes unspeakably miserable and desolate. None can say, “What doest thou?”

Adonai art thou. Yea, Lord of lords and king of kings. Thy throne is established in the heaven of heavens, and thou hast done whatsoever thou hast pleased. Shall there be evil in a city, and thou hast not done it? Adonai Tzevaoth art thou. Enlisted within thy hosts are all things in heaven and earth. The sun, moon, and stars are thy soldiers. The hornets go before thy people to drive out the enemy. Assyria is in thine hand as an axe. Cyrus thou hast called by name to perform all thy pleasure. The myriads of angels are thy ministering spirits, going before thy face to do thy bidding. The great dragon himself—that old serpent who is called the devil and Satan—is an instrument under thy power, destroying the flesh of thy wayward sons, so that thou dost bring them to repentance.

Yahweh art thou. I am that i am. Jehovah God. Merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. Thou dost keep mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and thou wilt by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children’s children, unto the third and fourth generations. A rock thou art! A God of truth! And all thy ways are judgment, for thou art just and right.

Thou art the first and the last, and besides thee there is no God. Thou art Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Trisagion! Unity in trinity and trinity in unity.

What is thy name, but all that thou hast revealed concerning thyself in thy personal names and infinite perfections and glorious persons and awful works? What is thy name, but who thou art? To love thy name is to love thee. To call upon thy name is to call upon thee. To forget thy name is to forget thee. To take thy name in vain is to count thee as dust blown about by the wind. But thou art God, and there is no other name in all the earth besides thy name that is to be praised. Thy glory belongs to no other.

The only adorable God—how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

Our parents assigned us names at birth, but no man names thee. Can the finite understand the infinite? Can a worm fathom the unending expanse of the majesty from on high? As thou dost comprehend thine own boundless being in thine own eternal present, thou needest no name. But a name of truth hast thou given to thyself in thy speech unto men. And thou dost name thyself, for thou dwellest in the light.

The sun hast thou given a small measure of glory. Radiating with such energy, its temperature ascends into millions of degrees. Unapproachable is that celestial light of the daytime. Should a man encroach upon the sun’s doorstep, he would be incinerated into space dust.

But thou art the light of light, the sun of righteousness, powerfully emanating in the constant fullness of thy divine being. Pure and infinite energy of fervent heat art thou. Holy flame art thou, an eternal burning that a deluge of water cannot quench. If the sun is unapproachable in its glory, how much more art thou, who called light into being and fixed its abode in the stars? “Holy! Holy! Holy!” cry the seraphim, while covering their feet and their eyes in thy courts.

Thou art Jehovah. That is thy name. And thy glory thou wilt not give to another.

Thou art Jehovah, whose name is Jealous. And jealous art thou for thy name. Jealous art thou for those who are called by thy name. Jealous art thou as a fire. Those who love thee know thy burning passion as covenant mercy. Those who hate thee know thy burning passion as wrath. Thy light pierces through the blackness of darkness along the lines of the antithesis, either to save or to destroy, to refresh or to dry up, to redeem or to cast into bondage, to build and protect or to cast down and destroy.

And at sundry times and in divers manners, thy light arose upon men.

Now, wherever thou dost record thy name, O Lord, there thou didst command an altar to be made. “An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me…in all places where I record my name.”

Thou didst record thy name in the plains of Moreh, appearing unto Abram thy friend. There he was in the presence of the enemy—the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites. Abram stood over against those who had changed the glory of thy name into an image made like unto a corruptible man, who had turned thy truth into a lie. He stood as the visible representative of thy cause in the earth over against the seed of the serpent. He was among many peoples who had to be overthrown, that his seed might dwell in the land. Abram was unto them a savor of death unto death, a despicable and threatening presence. But lo! Thou didst appear unto him, saying, “Unto thy seed will I give this land.” There is thy name! Thou art a God who fulfills all thy promises, who gives a spiritual inheritance in pure grace. There in Canaan was thy name recorded, and Abram built thee an altar.

Thou didst record thy name in the mountains of Moriah, having proved the faith of Abraham and manifested thy work of grace in him. What is this, that he must sacrifice his seed? the one in whom all thy promise dwells? Will God destroy his own work? Never! Thou callest the things that are not as if they were. Thou quickenest the dead. So by faith Abraham offered up Isaac upon the altar and received him again from the dead in a figure. And in the stead of Abraham’s son, thou didst provide a ram. Jehovah-jireh! Thou wilt provide. Thou wilt see to it that the covenant is fulfilled through the death and resurrection life of a substitute. There upon that altar of Moriah was thy name recorded.

Thou didst record thy name in Rephidim, swearing unto Moses that thou wouldst war with Amalek perpetually until the remembrance of that nation was blotted out from under heaven. Amalek—the manifestation of all that opposes and exalts itself above thee. Amalek—the enemy at enmity against thee, who says in his heart, “Who is Jehovah that I should restrain myself from cutting his people from off the earth?” Amalek—who, when thy people are weak and weary, discovers the opportune time to swoop down upon them to destroy them and mock thee. But thou art Jehovah-nissi! Thou art a banner over thy people. Under thy name thy people do valiantly, for thou art he who treads down our enemies. The battle against our ancient foe belongs to thee. Thou hast sworn! Either thy name must fail or Amalek must perish from off the earth. There in Rephidim was thy name recorded, and Moses built thee an altar.

Thou didst record thy name under the oak in Ophrah, visiting thy people under the affliction of Midian and Amalek. Cruelly, the enemies assaulted thy people with wave after wave of destruction. The enemies were a plague of locusts, leaving no green thing in their wake. There was no sustenance left for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor ass. Thy people resorted to dens and caves and strongholds. But then thine angel appeared to Gideon and spoke those wondrous words, “Jehovah is with thee!” Israel did not perish from off the face of the earth, but Israel had a deliverer. For thou didst cherish the thoughts of thy people, thoughts of peace and not of evil. Thou art Jehovah-shalom! There upon a rock the angel sealed thy words with a wonder: fire arose on the rock and consumed Gideon’s offering. In Ophrah was thy name recorded, and Gideon built an altar unto thee.

Thou didst record thy name before Manoah and his barren wife, after Israel had been delivered into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. Israel had become such a miserable and evil wreck that she was not even crying out to thee for deliverance anymore. But thou didst send thy angel to bring glad tidings to a barren woman that she would beget a child, a Nazarite unto thee and a deliverer from the hands of the adversary. And when Manoah enquired of thine angel concerning the angel’s name, thine angel showed his name to be Wonderful. Wonderful because thou art wonderful, O God! Wonderful because thou only performest wonders. Wonderful because thou workest what eye has not seen, nor ear heard. From man’s perspective thy church goes down to extinction. But thou art the Lord of wonder-working power, with whom all things are possible. Such is thy name! And wondrously did thine angel work, igniting fire upon the altar-rock and ascending up in its flame. There among the Danites was thy name recorded.

And in due time thou didst choose to put thy name in Jerusalem. Taking up thy residence among thy people in the temple mount, thou didst command the altar to be erected in thy court. Where that altar is, there thy great name is recorded. There thou dost cause thyself to be remembered. From thy court issues forth the call, “O ye seed of Abraham his servant, remember his marvelous works that he has done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth!”

When a great man builds himself a house with a courtyard, he places in that courtyard that which gives him delight and honors him. Perhaps he will install a large granite fountain, with its quatrefoil pool, with its fountain head exalted high in the air, with its water spilling over tiered basins. Perhaps, if he is enamored of sculpture work, he will choose to display a patinated bronze statue: a man with rippling muscles or some ferocious beast. Perhaps he will dig a koi pond, supplying it with the most exquisite of fish and surrounding the pond with the most desirable of foliage. Then when guests walk through his courtyard, they are filled with awe at his wisdom and his eye for beauty.

But for those who enter the righteous gates of thy sacred house, O Lord, the first point of focus is thy altar. It is the altar that bears record of thy name, and it is thy name that is worthy of delight and all honor.

Great art thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised!

Holy Ground

Now, put off your shoes, O man, for the place whereon you stand is holy ground!

You approach the place where God has recorded his name. Do you know with whom you meet? Jehovah has declared, “In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee.” Who is at the altar? He whose name is Jealous! The Holy One of Israel!

Holy ground!

That place is holy because God has called it holy. God has come down to a world fallen under the corruption of sin to redeem that world from the curse, to sanctify it unto himself, and to lift it up into the everlasting kingdom of heaven. He has come for holy covenant fellowship. He has come to draw his people unto himself, to whisper his wondrous secrets to them, to show them that they are his eternal delight. They are his people, the sheep of his pasture, the seed of Abraham his servant, the children of Jacob his chosen. They belong to him. They are consecrated to him and to him alone. They exist for his glory and for his praise alone. That place is holy because it is called by God’s name.

Holy ground!

The holiness of the altar was set apart in the mind of the Israelite. He watched as Moses and Aaron cleansed the altar for seven consecutive days after it had been built. The Israelite watched as Moses took of the holy oil and sprinkled it seven times, declaring it to be a most holy thing. The Israelite was told that only the priests could minister on that altar, themselves sanctified and free from blemish. Holy was that altar, for holy is the name that it bore.

Holy ground!

And now, in the altar of his sanctuary, Jehovah gives himself a face of fire. That altar is not the only place where God gave himself the form of flame. God came in the smoking furnace and burning lamp to pass through the parted animals before the passive attendance of Abraham. God came in the fire that set ablaze the desert shrub that demanded the attention of Moses. God descended upon Sinai as a fiery torrent. He kept the night watch in the pillared torch over his desert pilgrims. Forever he sits upon the throne of heaven, eyes ablaze and fiery streams issuing forth from his presence.

There in the bosom of the altar rests the record of God’s name as a continual burning. A flame not from man but of God. For when Moses and Aaron laid the first sacrifices upon that altar of the tabernacle, the glory of Jehovah issued forth from the tabernacle in an illustrious blaze and licked up the offerings. When both Gideon and Manoah spread their gifts upon the altar-rock before the angel of the Lord, God called forth fire out of the stone. When Solomon had made an end of praying at the dedication of the temple, heavenly flames descended upon the brazen altar and set it ablaze. And that same fire of Jehovah also fell down upon Carmel, devouring the offering and wood and stones and dust, licking up the water in the trench.

Holy ground! Jealous is he for his name and glory.

Thus the holiness of that altar is inviolable. None can profane God’s name and live. Those who compass his altar must be perfect. Do you not know his law? Be ye holy, for he is holy! Our God is a consuming fire!

Most clearly was this truth impressed upon the Israelite who stood upon the slopes of Mount Ebal, having just witnessed his God make Jericho a trash heap and Ai a dumpster fire. There on Ebal Joshua built an altar unto Jehovah in the presence of the people as Moses had commanded. Joshua inscribed Moses’ law into the mountain’s raw stone. Then the Levites took up the words of the law with a loud voice: “Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image…Cursed be he that…Cursed be he that…Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them.”

Then thundered the solemn noise of a million voices, “Amen.”

Let that man be accursed who keeps not the whole law. Let him be cursed in the city and in the field. Let him be cursed in what he gathers from the field and in what he stores away. Let him be cursed in his offspring and in all of his labor. Let him be cursed when he goes in. Let him be cursed when he goes out. Let pestilence cleave to him. Let God blast him with disease and with sword. Let heaven be brass over him and the earth be iron under him. Let him be slain by the enemies and his carcass be food for the birds. Let him grope about in the daytime. Let him taste the fire of God’s wrath every day as he sinks down into the place of everlasting burnings. Let him be accursed, for our God is holy!

Worthy is our God of all love and perfect obedience! He must be loved. He must be loved as the only good and ever-blessed God. God must be man’s whole delight and true bliss. God must be man’s constant joy. Holiness must reverberate through the whole of man’s being, from the depths of his existence to the extremities of his body. Never may there be any dissonant chord struck in that man’s life with God. Holy must man be unto God. And holy must man be in God’s presence. Anything less than absolute righteousness is not worthy of the place where God’s name is recorded.

God is not a God who has pleasure in wickedness. He is terribly displeased with sin. He loathes evil with his whole being. He has no fellowship with evil. He hates all workers of iniquity. He abhors the bloody and deceitful man. Fools shall not stand in God’s sight. Cursed be he that confirms not all the words of the law to do them!

This same testimony arose whenever a man approached the altar of the tabernacle. In that most holy sanctuary rested the holy throne of Israel’s lawgiver. At the base of his throne were the two stone tables of the law. Beneath his seat was the most rigorous demand of perfection. All who come unto him must be holy!

Holy ground!

Says the living God, “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Lev. 10:3). In what tremendous context were these words uttered? These words came unto Aaron, whose two oldest sons had just been burnt to a crisp while carrying strange fire before the Lord. And what became of the two hundred and fifty rebels, who under Korah insisted that they were holy and might enter into God’s sanctuary of themselves? They also were turned into briquettes.

Who can stand before God’s indignation against evil? Who can abide the fierceness of his anger against sin? His fury is poured out like fire. God is jealous for his name’s sake. Jehovah will take vengeance on the evildoer. God reserves wrath for his enemies.

Approaching that altar is an astounding thing. Do you understand who comes to meet with you?

Nay, but man is altogether brutish and foolish, void of counsel and without understanding! Jeshurun waxed fat and forsook God who had made him. Even those who have heard his most glorious name have lightly esteemed the rock of salvation. Does not God’s name sing of his holiness? But man has corrupted himself. He is a perverse and crooked generation.

When a sinner is confronted with the holiness of God, he has abundant reasons to be filled with terror. Everything warns the sinner that he should beware of God. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven, and in that wrath the sinner pines away and dies. In the sinner’s own conscience, the handwriting of God witnesses against him and accuses him before the judge of heaven and earth. God appears to him as an enemy.

God appeared to Jacob at Bethel, and Jacob trembled, saying, “How dreadful is this place!” Gideon cried out, “Alas!” Manoah wailed unto his wife that they would surely die. Isaiah howled, “Woe is me! for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips, and I have seen the king, Jehovah of hosts!” And whenever that fire of Jehovah descended from heaven, all of its witnesses threw themselves to the ground and shouted. Such is sinful man when confronted by the holiness of God. Man falls apart at the seams.

“In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee,” says Jehovah. But who may abide the day of his coming? Who shall stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire.

Holy ground!

A Place of Blood

But, lo! Ye sons of Jacob are not consumed!

Not consumed! How can this be?

Here dwells the name of the living God. He is purest light. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and he cannot look on iniquity. He is a consuming fire that devours all that is not holy, all that is not absolutely consecrated to him. In devouring wrath he licks up all that is profane. His anger waxes hot against all rebellion against his law.

Not consumed! How can this be?

I am a man of unclean lips. I have lips that are polluted and defiled. I have lips that will take God’s most holy name and corrupt its glory. If I speak in his presence, I will surely profane his truth. When I contemplate his works, his perfections, his names, his persons—how is it that I am so dull as not to collapse in the dust and tremble before him? But it is not just my lips; my whole nature is rebellious against him! A terrible disease is within me. I am the one who has despised his good and holy law both day and night, in waking and in sleeping, in working and in playing. Over and over I return like a dog to my vomit, like a pig to the mire. I grovel in the dust. I am carnal and sold under sin. What I feel in my nature is this: I hate God! I despise that magnificent name! I have counted the record of himself as an altogether loathsome thing. I have not said, “Let thy name, O Lord, be magnified and all else be abased.” But I have boasted, “Let thy name be trampled in the dust and altogether reckoned as chaff in the wind while my name is exalted in the earth.” Who is the whoremonger? Who is the thief? Who is the murderer? Who is the Sabbath desecrator? Who is the despiser of all in authority? Who is the idolator? Who is the God-hater…

Not consumed! How can this be?

Cursed be he that confirms not all the words of the law to do them! And were not many of the sons of Jacob consumed in their generations? With many of them God was not well pleased, and they were overthrown in the wilderness. The northern tribes were sowed to the wind. Jerusalem was made an astonishment and a proverb, a byword among all the nations. But is their rebellion not my own? How can this be? It cannot be anything in me…

and that is true. Behold that altar!

A bloody altar!

A bloody altar—for “thou…shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen.” Four horns extending upward—crimson with blood. The base of the altar—stained with blood. The ground beneath the altar—a pool of blood. The throats of animals being slit—a stream of blood. Blood sprinkled here. Blood tossed there. A place of slaughter.

A bloody altar—for judgment has taken place. A judgment has been passed. Blood has been shed. A torrent of holy flame has descended from heaven and devoured the guilty. God has come and judged. And he has accepted a perfect substitute in my place. The red stains on the altar have not come from my body but from Christ’s.

Blood of propitiation. Blood of reconciliation. Blood of cleansing from all sin. Justified by blood. Peace in blood. Sanctified by blood. Made nigh unto God through blood. Blood for sprinkling the heart from an evil conscience. Blood for purging the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Precious blood of the lamb of God!

A bloody altar—this is where Jehovah has recorded his name! He is a God who fulfills all his promises and gives to his people an eternal inheritance. Jehovah-jireh is he—a God who provides the perfect substitute and raises the dead. Jehovah-nissi is he—under his name we cannot be destroyed. Our ancient foe has no power over us. Satan and his seed cannot touch us. Sin cannot hurt us. Death cannot swallow us. Jehovah-shalom is he—a God who brings peace, having reconciled us to him in love. Wonderful! Wonderful is his name, and wondrously he works. We have both seen and heard the name of our God. And here at his altar, all of his works in time and history converge in one—Jesus Christ crucified.

The crucified Christ is the only name that God will have his people know. Behold how that one name refracts in most wondrous and diverse splendor throughout all the pages of holy scripture. Whenever God came to the earth to record his name, that name was always Jesus Christ and him crucified. Through the crucified Christ alone is how God will be known. Through Christ crucified alone is how God will be worshiped. The cross is the only altar where men may gather and say, “I have seen the face of God and lived.”

A bloody altar!

And an altar that does not belong to all men. God chooses where his name will be recorded in the earth. God chooses who will stand in the blood of that sacrifice. God chooses who will know his name in truth. To whom does this altar belong? It belongs to those who are chosen from before the foundation of the world, according to God’s good pleasure and not according to anything that the chosen have done.

“An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me…And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone.” Let the altar be of earth, unadulterated with the works of men! Or if the altar be of stone, then let it be raw stone, unhewn and untouched by the instruments of a man! The will and the doing and the achievement of man must never come into view and try to embellish that altar. This is the sole glory of that altar: Jesus Christ whom God has sent. Behold what wonderful things God has wrought! Let that altar whereon the name of God is recorded be undefiled with man. Not by deeds of the law but by an election of pure grace do that altar and its testimony belong to God’s remnant.

Do not inscribe your works upon that altar.

Do not bring your works, for then you pollute and defile God’s holy name. Even obedient Abraham, who offered up Isaac by faith, counted all his works as dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. Abraham’s name and Abraham’s faith are not memorialized upon the mountains of Moriah, but Abraham called the place Jehovah-jireh. “Faithful is my God!”

Do not bring your works for a blessing. For what does God say? “In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.” An altar of earth or stone is where God comes to bless his people without their works. An altar of earth or stone is where God comes to bless his people in Christ. If you bring your works for a blessing, you have corrupted the whole business.

And be warned, the holiness of that place is inviolable!

Not consumed!

Under the name of Christ crucified, I forever shall dwell in the midst of everlasting burnings. God is the fire, and the body of Christ is the desert shrub. I shall never be consumed in Christ, for he was consumed in my stead. In Christ I am holiness to the Lord. And lo! That Pentecostal Spirit of Christ—the holy Lord from heaven—has descended upon the church and taken his dwelling place in my heart. And I am not consumed! I shall live forever in the midst of holy fire.

What an altar!

Holy ground! A bloody altar! An altar of stone! The holy record of God’s name.

In that place where God has brought his name to remembrance, he has overcome, by a wonder of grace, the curse of the ground and lifted up the ground into his everlasting kingdom. Through the altar of the cross, God does not annihilate this world. He redeems it. He purges it. He sanctifies it unto himself.

Confidence in Him

O holy Father, thy truth has plucked the chords of the hearts of thy people!

If thou shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? My iniquities prevail against me. But thou shalt purge them away. There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. O Jehovah, correct me, but not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing. Correct me but without judgment.

O send out thy light and thy truth. Let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto thine altar, unto thee my exceeding joy. If the swallow finds a place for a nest in thine altars, how much more shall I find refuge in the place where thou recordest thy name? My hands thou hast washed in innocency, so will I compass thine altar, O Jehovah. There I will publish with the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all thy wondrous works.

O send out thy light and thy truth. Assure me of thine eternal good will toward me. Reveal thyself to me, a sinner, in the face of Jesus Christ. Teach me of thine exceeding great power to save to the uttermost, of thy covenant friendship and love. Speak of thy boundless grace and mighty power unto salvation. Blot out my sins, for not only to others but to me also are remission of sins and life eternal. Bathe me in blood and clothe me in righteousness. Justify the ungodly. Then shall I boldly enter thy sanctuary and dwell in thy presence.

O ye enemies, will ye contend with me? Then let us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. For near is he who justifies me. And he is a consuming fire.