(upbeat music) - Well, why does the Bible stress the power of Jesus' name? The question comes from a listener named Jared. Hello, Pastor John, a question for you that my wife and I have wondered about for a while now. Why the biblical emphasis on praising the name of Jesus and praying in the name of Jesus?

Of course, we want to, and it's a pattern we see all over the New Testament, especially in the book of Acts. And here he cites Acts 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 8, chapter 9, chapter 10, chapter 16, 19, 26, and in Paul, in 1 Corinthians 1, 2, Philippians 2, 10, it's all over the place.

To ask it another way, why is there power in Christ's name rather than saying there's power in Christ's person? What would you say to Jared and his wife? - Well, the answer to that last question is easy. There isn't. There isn't power in Christ's name rather than saying there's power in Christ's person.

There is power in Christ's name because there is power in Christ's person. But Jared knows that. That was just a freak of wording. He knows that. What he really wants to know, I think, is what he said at the beginning. Why do we see such an emphasis on praising the name of Jesus and praying in the name of Jesus, doing all these things in the name of Jesus?

What does the focus on name imply in the New Testament? So let me try to answer that in maybe three steps. One, the fact that in the Old Testament, God went out of His way to make a connection between someone's God-given name and the essentially important thing about that person is significant.

For example, Genesis 17, five. Abram changed to Abraham. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. Or Sarai changed to Sarah. As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.

I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her, and I will bless her, and she shall become nations. And then Jacob changed to Israel. God says your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.

And most importantly is God's own name. He names Himself. This is one of the most important passages in the Bible, I think, Exodus 3, 13 to 14, where Moses says to the, "The people are gonna ask me when I go down there "to deliver them in Egypt, what is God's name?

"What shall I tell them?" God says to Moses, "I am who I am." And He said, "Say this to the people. "I am sent me to you." So Yahweh, the name that's used over 600 times for God in the Old Testament, it's usually capitalized L-O-R-D in our English versions, Yahweh is built on that phrase, I am, I am who I am.

In other words, every time we read the name of God, it's a proper name, Yahweh, every time we read the name of God, He wants us to remember His essence. That's the point. When you say my name, remember my essence. I absolutely am. That's why I gave myself a name with a meaning, a name with a meaning, no beginning, no ending, no becoming, no changing, I absolutely am.

I am true, I am reliable. Every time you say L-O-R-D, all caps, Yahweh, remember that. So that's the first observation. Second, when the Son of God came into the world as the very presence of God Himself, He was given a name, Jesus. You shall call His name Jesus because He will save His people from their sins.

Jesus means Savior. He's more, but He's not less. You should call His name Emmanuel for it means God with us. Call His name Christ because He's the Son of the living God, Matthew 16, 16. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Philippians 2.10, Jesus replaces the very name of Yahweh from Isaiah 45.23.

When He quotes that text, Paul puts Jesus' name in there, that every knee will bow to Jesus, where the Old Testament says every knee's gonna bow to Yahweh. So boldly, Jesus is saying, I mean, Paul is saying that Jesus is Yahweh and that whatever was true of that name is now true of the name Jesus.

So just as Jared said in his question at the beginning, the name refers to the essence, the defining reality of the person. And you see it repeatedly that the word stands in the place of some defining aspect of the person. You see it again and again where the name and the person are interchangeable.

For example, in Colossians 3.17, it says, whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, and then continues like this, giving thanks to the Father through, and instead of saying the name of Jesus again, which could have said, he said through Him.

So do everything in the name of Jesus, giving thanks to the Father through Him, because Him and the name of the Lord Jesus are interchangeable in that verse. So that's observation number two. Number three, Jared's real question, my real question is why? We can all see this in the Bible, that the name really matters, and the name really stands for the essence.

And we've adapted our language to that. We don't even blink when we pray in Jesus' name or do something in Jesus' name. But why this remarkably frequent reference to the name? And here's my effort at an answer, since the Bible doesn't come right out in a theological, systematic way and say, here's the explanation why I use name so many times.

Try to imagine what would happen if there were no names, if nobody had any names, there's no designations, not even numbers, you don't have a number, you're not like seven, two, three, eight, nine. What would we miss if nobody had a name, nobody had a number, nobody had any personal designation?

What would we miss? Well, it seems to me we would miss the ease of talking to someone personally. How would you get their attention? It's not very personal to say, hey you, and it's hard to say, hey you, so many times. And you couldn't endear yourself to anybody in conversation by constantly saying, hey you, and never, never using any personal designation for who they are individually.

So that's number one, we'd miss that personal way of talking. Number two, we would have a hard time talking about someone if we wanted to say, discuss them in hiring. I don't mean talking about them in any kind of gossipy way, I just mean normally talking in a positive way about somebody, we couldn't even name them.

How would we even know who we're talking about if we couldn't name somebody? So talking about them, say even to praise them, which is number three, we would have a hard time singing anybody's praises if we couldn't ever name them. So without names, all of this collapses, all this relational communication collapses, and God knew that, and he began the world by naming things.

Then after God named things, Adam named things. He named all the animals, he gave his wife a name, and that makes communication possible. And early on, God gave names that corresponded to something important that a person had or would have, which, by the way, just a little passing comment here, I would just encourage parents to think hard when they name their children to give them names that have meaning that they can grow into.

Don't just think, oh, that's a cool sound. Surely life is more than a cool sound. Okay, close that parenthesis. That's another APJ, another time. So here's the implication. Referring to the name of Jesus so often is a way of saying this person is not to be dealt with in private.

He is not to be hidden, a hidden essence in your heart or in your closet. He is to be public, globally known, acknowledged as a person with an identity that people talk to and people talk about, that people praise and sing about. The emphasis on his name goes with an emphasis on his public, outward, global claim on people's attention.

Romans 1:5, "We have apostleship to bring about "the obedience of faith for the sake of his name "among all the nations." Romans 9:17, "That my name might be proclaimed "in all the earth." Romans 15, 19, "Therefore I will praise you "among the Gentiles and sing to your name." Romans 10, 13, "For everyone who calls upon "the name of the Lord will be saved." So one way to think about it is that the name of Jesus goes hand in hand with the fame of Jesus.

I think that might be the shorthand way to remember what I'm trying to say, that the name of Jesus goes hand in hand with the fame of Jesus. A name is a way of communicating with and a way of communicating about all over the world who you're talking about.

And Jesus exists to be known. He exists to be addressed and praised all over the world. The word name calls attention repeatedly to the public verbal goal of his fame. - That's really good. So the name of Christ has no magical power in itself like some incantation. - I don't think so.

I don't think there's anything magical about it. - Yeah, and I think the seven sons of Sceva found that out the hard way. - Yeah, that would be a good illustration. I know Paul, I know Jesus, who are you? - Oh, yeah, don't wheel that name around if you don't know what it means.

And thank you for listening along and for subscribing to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app or in YouTube. Next time we will look at asexuality of people who experience no general sexual attraction to others. Is this a sure sign of the permanent gift of singleness or not?

Could this change? It's a really good question. Up next on the other side of the weekend, I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you on Monday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)