04.025. Knowing the Name of God
Knowing the Name of God They that know Thy name will put their trust in Thee-- Psalms 9:10.
Here again, the name, being the nature, it stands for the Person, the character. Man’s name is often the exact opposite of himself, but God’s names are revelations of God. Hence the meaning here is that a true knowledge of God’s nature or character as revealed in His chosen names and titles leads to involuntary trust in Him. This is the way both to inspire and increase faith.
There are two ways in which men seek more trust in God. One--the false way--is to fix attention on the faith, trying thus to quicken confidence in Him. The other way--the only true way--is to fix the eye on God as the object of faith. If we learn what sort of a God He is, we shall, even without effort, put in Him our trust. He will draw out our affection and confidence if we really know and understand Him.
Trust is from the same root as truth--true, truer, truest--trust. It is repose upon God’s truth. Faith rests on His faithfulness. Hence the more we know of His truth and faithfulness the more perfectly do we rest and repose upon them.
Trust is the response to His attraction, but we need to come within the range of that attraction. His Word He has magnified above all His name as the grand mirror of Himself. Having the written and living Word together, we have no reason to ask, “Show us the Father.” In the Scriptures and in the Lord Jesus Christ we have a complete exhibition of God’s Being.
It is worthwhile to study God’s names as found in the Scriptures. They are numerous, but significant. Some of them indicate His natural, others His moral, attributes, and there appears to be a progress of doctrine from beginning to end. Observe the three main words in this verse--name, know, and trust.
Take as basis for this study the following names of God:
Almighty God, Genesis 17:1. Power first, because without this He could do nothing for the trusting soul. In Abram’s case it was Creative Power, giving Isaac after the age of childbearing, quickening Sarah’s dead womb (Romans 4:17-21).
Jehovah, Exodus 3:13-15; Exodus 6:3. Eternity seems to be the leading thought in that untranslatable word, which represents at once the past, present, and future of the verb, to be, and expresses the idea of an eternal present--I AM, the Living One, Fountain of Life, and forever the same. Hence to be trusted as the covenant God (comp. Exodus 34:5-7).
Holy, Father, Redeemer, Isaiah 57:15; Isaiah 63:16; Isaiah 64:8; Isaiah 66:1-2. Isaiah is specially rich in Divine names and titles. Here we have names expressing God’s Holiness, Fatherhood, and Redemptive relation. We are in the department of moral attributes and His relation to men in grace. What an inspiration to our faith!
Light, Love, 1 John 1:5; 1 John 4:8. Taken together with Jehovah, in which the great thought is Life, we have God as Life--the essence of all being; Light, the essence of all intellectual excellence; Love, the sum of all moral excellence. Such a God we must trust. He has and is Power infinite, and Eternal Life; He is Holy, yet gracious, a Father and Redeemer. He has and is infinite Light and Love, and cannot err through ignorance or malice. He is the perfect object of trust and faith (comp. John 17:3). This is Life Eternal that they might know Thee, the only TRUE GOD.