September 5 – LD 36, Day 3: The Majesty of God

Psalm 111:9: “He sent redemption unto His people: He hath commanded His covenant for ever: holy and reverend is His name.”

Repeatedly God reveals Himself in the Bible as the Holy One. He is the One set apart. Because He is the Almighty, the Lord Who as the Creator, rules over all, He is also totally consecrated to Himself. He sovereignlygoverns all things to accomplish the purpose of His own will and the glory of His own name.

The Lord is clothed with honour and majesty (Psalm 104:1). His own perfections or attributes are also His name. They belong to His own Being. Some of those attributes are so strongly tied to His own Being, as it were, that no other creature can even bear them. For example, His eternity (Psalm 90:2) and His unchangeableness (Malachi 3:6), are so powerfully intertwined with Him that they belong to no created Being. They are exclusively God's attributes.

God reveals Himself also by other perfections which are communicable. That is, God has been pleased to have some of the light rays, as it were, of those attributes shine forth from His creatures as a reflection of how good He is. Even though His people may be said to be holy or just or merciful or loving or good by virtue of the work of the Holy Spirit in them, yet none of them is that way in himself or herself, and not one bears any of those attributes perfectly and infinitely. Only the name of God Himself is revealed by those perfections of His own Being. He is love. He is mercy. He is holy. He is good. Those are His names.

So with just this brief reminder of the significance of His name, and of every single revelation of Himself in the various names by which He has revealed Himself, we remember that God's name is so great, that there is no other name to be compared to it. For that reason the use of His name requires deepest reverence and honour.