We are going to debunk the idea that God’s name is ‘Yahweh’.
‘Yahweh’ as a Pagan Tribal God
How many Christian organizations we keep hearing saying ‘Yahweh, Yahweh’? We want people to understand that Yahweh is not the name of God. We’ve got to avoid using this. Because the more Christians use this term ‘Yahweh’, what they are doing is that they are supporting more of the liberals.
One might ask, why is that? Because liberals, in their college classes, teach that how Christianity and Judaism got their name of God is that it’s not from their own religion; it’s not from their own God, but they borrowed it through pagans. That’s what they have to argue. In order to argue that Abraham and Moses got some tribal pagan god name out of nowhere for the name of their God, they have to mention this ‘Yahweh’.
Because liberals teach that, this came from a pagan tribal god. It’s a desert god, they would call it, some sort of desert pagan tribal god which is why Abraham, being a desert tribe, started his nation; and Moses and their people, being desert tribe, started their nation. They borrowed it from some sort of desert god.
The Origin of ‘Yahweh’
However, our God didn’t borrow his name from some kind of desert pagan nobody. Pastor Kim was in liberal classes at Berkeley and they taught that. When he heard that in UC Berkeley, that confirmed his belief even more. The professor was a Jew as well.
Even Wikipedia realize a “basic fact like that.” “‘Yahweh was the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. His exact origins are disputed, although they reach back to the early Iron Age and even the late Bronze. His name may have begun as an epithet of L, head of the Bronze Age Canaanite Pantheon; but the earliest plausible mentions are in Egyptian texts that place him among the nomads of the southern Transjordan.“
Here’s one source from William G. Denver at 2003-B. The article is ‘Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From’. We can find out in that source, they are claiming that (remember who’s before the Christians? The Israelites) that these Israelites borrowed it from some kind of nomadic tribe out of nowhere, out of the desert, the name of their god ‘Yahweh’. That’s even found at Wikipedia.
‘Yahweh’ as a Disputed Translation
However, how did we get this idea? We got this idea at the book of Exodus, because basically, this is supposedly his Hebrew name. But in Hebrew to English, it’s not ‘Yahweh’. It’s disputed. The King James Bible calls it ‘Jehovah’. If we are to translate that from Hebrew to English, we are not going to say ‘Yahweh’, but ‘Jehova’. How this translation comes out is that the KJV word in English (not in Hebrew) was translated from Latin, which in turn was translated from Hebrew. That is normal through correct translation processes.
One example is, if one looks at Acts. It mentions Jesus took the Jews to the promised land. Obviously, it’s not our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; it’s Joshua. But that’s a normal translation from Hebrew to Greek, and from Greek to what we have right here in our English King James Bible. This is nor an inaccurate translation, when some people try to say this is an inaccurate translation (‘J didn’t come out until later in the centuries.’) Because we are in 2018 and this ‘J’ thing came out through translation from translation. That’s just a common-sense fact.
How Shall We Address God?
A lot of people will argue that they want to use the language that Jesus used when he talked to the Father; and Jesus, he spoke Hebrew. Because he spoke Hebrew, wouldn’t it be best if one spoke Hebrew like Jesus too?
We are going to debunk that notion, Because, firstly, this word is disputed still about translation from Hebrew. From Hebrew translation, there are no vowels.
What you see is just a consonant, ‘y’ and ‘w’, we don’t know if it’s going to be that J sound. It’s a Yoda concept, so it could be either ‘y’ or ‘j’ here.
We can prove the English words in the Bible because it went from Latin and from Hebrew. But this ‘Yahweh’ doesn’t have the utmost proof, because it’s disputed. There are no vowels, so it could be either or. If one wants to use the language that Jesus used, then let’s look at Mark 14:35.
Mark 14:35-36: “And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.”
How did Jesus address God when he prayed to God? Did he say ‘Yahweh’? There’s even the Hebrew word there for us: Abba. When Jesus prayed to God, most of the time he used ‘Father’.
Wouldn’t God the Father prefer that kind of relationship more anyways, of a son and father talking?
That is the spirit of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Those two witnesses compel you to also cry out ‘Father’ in your spirit. If one feels that there’s something in him or her that wants to say ‘Yahweh’, then that’s not some clean spirit right there. If it came from this kind of a God, then one has got some kind of spirit. The spirit that should compel one to say God’s name would be the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Where did the other spirit come from?
Look at Galatians 4:6. This is what the Bible says.
Galatians 4:6: “ And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”
Within your spiritual nature, Jesus and the Holy Spirit compel you (and God also himself a father), the whole Trinity compel you to cry out ‘Father’.
Aren’t we followers of Jesus who want to do what Jesus said? If we want to do what Jesus said, we should ignore what scholars and preachers are saying and not listen to them. Where did you get the idea that Jesus said ‘Yahweh’? The Bible never said that. The Bible said Jesus said ‘Father’. Which pastor were you listening to?
When the disciples even asked Jesus to teach them to pray, what did Jesus even said? How he taught them to pray? Did he teach them to say ‘Yahweh’? Matthew 6:9 is a famous prayer.
Matthew 6:9; “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”
Jesus instructed and taught them to say ‘Father’, not ‘Yahweh’. By the way, when Jesus was teaching in Matthew 6:9, the New Testament here is translated to Greek. This is not ‘Yahweh’ in the Greek New Testament.
Call Upon God’s Name in One’s Own Language
We all want to do what God wants. Then who gave the languages? It was God. If God gave us a language to call upon his name, in that language, wouldn’t He prefer us to use that?
Acts 2:21: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
The Bible says ‘the name of the Lord’ here. Peter is preaching to them and he mentioned about them calling on the name of the Lord. Do you know how was he preaching it to them? In their own languages. Let’s look at Acts 2.
Acts 2:6:”Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own languages.”
Acts 2:9-11: “Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.”
Do you think they were all preaching ‘Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh’? Or was in Hebrew or was it in their own language?
And Peter told them that through this preaching process, calling on the name of the Lord. God wants us to speak to him as son and father. He doesn’t want us to be bound in some tradition of Judaism. God really hates that because of what the Bible says in Galatians 2:14.
Galatians 2:14:”But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?”
This is what Pastor Kim wants to ask to messianic Jews and these ‘Yahweh’ people, why do you compel gentiles to speak Jewish? Who started the different languages? Is it Satan or God? God expects us to keep that division of languages. Otherwise, we won’t have done that.
But who wants to do one-world language, and one world government? All the nations combined? The Antichrist. No one is going to make me a Korean and preach against me and say, ‘you didn’t say Jesus in English, you didn’t say ‘Yahweh.’ There’s a Korean praying in Korean and he says ‘Yehsoonim’. Don’t bash him over the head. There’s a Grecian, saying ‘Eesoos’. Don’t bash him over the head. Don’t bash a Hispanic person saying ‘Hehsoos’. ‘Heh’ or ‘Yeh’ or ‘Jeh’ or whatnot, God wants us to speak in our languages and talk to Him in His language. Because He ordained the language, not us.
And by violating that and one goes to a selected kind of language, it shows an elitist attitude and even racism. God divided languages and nations for a reason. He wants one to worship God in one’s own language, and in one’s own nation.