Deep study
Knowing God by the names He reveals about Himself
In Scripture a name reveals character. God's names are windows into who He is - each one an invitation to trust Him more deeply.
The Bible opens, In the beginning, God (Elohim) created (Genesis 1:1). Elohim is the strong, sovereign Creator. The word is grammatically plural - a plural of majesty and fullness - yet it takes singular verbs, hinting from the first verse at a God of unfathomable greatness who is nonetheless one. (That same fullness will later make room for the Father, Son, and Spirit named together in Matthew 28:19.)
At the bush God gives His personal, covenant name: YHWH, from the verb to be (Exodus 3:14-15). It speaks of One who is self-existent and faithful across generations. The name was treated as so holy that readers said Adonai (Lord) in its place; most English Bibles render it LORD in small capitals. Elohim is God in His power; YHWH is God in His covenant nearness.
God reveals Himself to Abraham as El Shaddai, God Almighty, the all-sufficient One who keeps impossible promises (Genesis 17:1). He is Adonai, Lord and Master, the one to whom we belong. He is El Elyon, God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth (Genesis 14:18-22) - higher than every rival power.
God attaches His covenant name to His acts: YHWH-Yireh, the LORD will provide (Genesis 22:14); YHWH-Rapha, the LORD who heals (Exodus 15:26); YHWH-Nissi, the LORD my banner (Exodus 17:15); YHWH-Shalom, the LORD is peace (Judges 6:24); the LORD my Shepherd (Psalm 23:1); and YHWH-Tsidkenu, the LORD our righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6). Each name is a promise you can lean on by name.
Above every other attribute, Scripture stacks one word three times: Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts (Isaiah 6:3). Hebrew has no superlative like 'most'; it repeats a word to intensify it, and only of God's holiness is it tripled. Qadosh means set apart, wholly other, blazing with a purity that makes seraphim cover their faces. To know this God rightly is to feel the fear of the LORD - not cringing terror but reverent awe, which Scripture calls the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). It is no accident that the first request Jesus teaches us is hallowed be your name (Matthew 6:9): before we ask Him for anything, we are to treat His name as holy.
The Old Testament occasionally calls God the Father of His people, but Jesus makes it the heart of how we know God. He prayed Abba, Father (Mark 14:36), and taught His disciples to begin, Father (Luke 11:2). Most astonishing of all, He gives that name to us: because we are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father (Galatians 4:6). The transcendent, thrice-holy LORD - the One whose name was too sacred to pronounce - now invites the redeemed to call Him Father. Holiness and fatherhood are not in tension; the same God is both infinitely high and intimately near.
In John's Gospel Jesus takes the divine I AM (ego eimi) and fills it out in seven great pictures: I am the bread of life, the light of the world, the door, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way and the truth and the life, and the true vine. Each is a self-portrait of God come near to meet our deepest needs. And twice He speaks the name absolutely: before Abraham was, I AM (John 8:58), and in the garden, when the soldiers come and He says I AM, they draw back and fall to the ground (John 18:5-6). The Name the LORD once guarded so jealously is now worn, openly, by the carpenter from Nazareth.
All these names converge in Jesus. He takes the divine I AM on His own lips (John 8:58) and unfolds it: I am the bread, the light, the good shepherd, the resurrection. God has given Him the name that is above every name, before which every knee will bow (Philippians 2:9-11). To call on the name of the Lord and be saved (Joel 2:32; Romans 10:13) is now to call on Jesus.
In Revelation the risen Christ takes the most exclusive titles of all without apology: I am the Alpha and the Omega... who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty (Revelation 1:8); the first and the last (Revelation 1:17); the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13). The names the LORD guarded so jealously throughout the Old Testament are spoken by the Lamb on the throne. To know the names of God is, in the end, to know Jesus.