. 2. Jehovah Elohim. The first and foremost definition of God, according to many of the Reformed orthodox, comes from the compound Hebrew name, “Jehovah Elohim,” as it is given in Exodus 3:15. Although there is no
noticeable difference among the theologians and exegetes over the understanding of “Jehovah,” the juxtaposition with Elohim receives some different treatment—Perkins and Trelcatius understand the compound name as a brief but full revelation of the divine essence and trinity: “Jehovah Elohim (Exod. 6:2 & 3:15), the Lord God, that is, one Essence of three persons.”157 Others do not invoke the Trinity at this point.158 Perkins thus begins his discussion of the doctrine of God in A Golden Chaine with the simple declaration, “God is Jehovah Elohim”—the name offered to Moses in Exodus 3:15. Both the declaration and its recourse to Scripture offer insight into the character of the early orthodox theological enterprise: Perkins had begun his chapter with a brief a posteriori statement concerning the existence of God as evident from nature, civil order, and the temporal order—but the fundamental ordering of the discussion of the divine nature, like the ordering of Perkins’ entire treatise is synthetic and a priori. In order to move in this fashion, Perkins has primary recourse, not to rational argumentation, but to revelation—indeed, to the highly specific revelation of the identity of God to Moses, “God is Jehovah Elohim.”159 “Jehovah” signifies “I am” and therefore, comments Perkins, denotes the “most lively and most perfect essence.” The name “Jehovah,” therefore, directs the attention of theology toward “the perfection of the nature of God,” which is “the absolute constitution thereof, whereby it is wholly complete within itself,” whereas the plural form of Elohim, points toward the mystery of the Trinity.160 Thus, “Jehovah Elohim” is descriptive of the entire doctrine of God, given that, of this description there are two members, the one of the Essence, and the Unity of the Essence: the other of the Persons and the Trinity of the persons, which two can neither be separated from the declaration of the divine Nature, nor ought to be confounded in the same: for as there is an exceeding great and indivinable unity of the divine Essence in the plurality of the persons: (for the Essence of the Father is the Essence of the Son and the holy Ghost
so is there a real and different Distinction of the persons in the unity of Essence (so to be the Father is not to be the Son or the Holy Ghost.)161 This use of the plural form “Elohim” to point toward the doctrine of the Trinity is typical of the theology of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, most clearly echoing, perhaps, the great treatise by Zanchi, De Tribus Elohim. In any case, the revealed name of God provides access for quite a few of the early orthodox and high orthodox writers, not only to the doctrine of the divine essence and existence, but to the entire locus de Deo, both essence and attributes and Trinity.
3. The tetragrammaton: Jahve or Jehovah. Generally speaking, there can be no word “full enough, perfectly to express what God is.”162 Thus, Scripture indicates in several places that the name of God is “secret” and a “name which none can tell” (Judg. 13:18; Prov. 30:4). This is true also of the name of the Son—it is a name that none can tell (Prov. 30:4) and a name above every other name (Phil. 2:9). God, who is one and sole, cannot be named by us—the church has referred to him consistently with the names that he himself has revealed.163 In signifying the one God, therefore, Jehovah is the name of the full Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not the name of the Father alone.164 Thus, the text of Exodus 3:13–15, the one place in Scripture where God does in fact specifically offer his name, is of paramount importance and forms the basis of nearly all the discussions of the divine name or names among the Reformed orthodox. The exegetes nearly invariably note the probable relationship between the verb ejeh in verse 14 and the name Jahve or Jehovah in verse 15.165 They also are well aware of the problem of establishing a proper pronunciation and of the fact the “Jehovah” is a traditionary but probably not original rendering of the Hebrew, resulting from the insertion of the vowels of “Adonai” into the unpointed holy name—thus, the typical seventeenth-century recourse to the term “tetragrammaton” as indicating the four Hebrew consonants.166 Indeed, Pictet notes that we are ignorant of the proper pronunciation of the tetragrammaton, JHWH. He suggests “Jahve” and “Jahave,” offering also an “ancient Greek” form, “Jao,” and the frequently heard, “Jehova.”167 This name is often given in Scripture as the peculiar name of God (cf. Isa. 42:8) and denotes God as the one, in the words of the apostle John, “who is, who was, and who is to come” (Rev. 1:4). It is, moreover, this text in Revelation, more than the Septuagint rendering of Exodus 3:14, that sanctioned the traditional essentialist understanding of the text.168 Since God alone is such a being, the name Jehovah “belongs to God alone” and “is never given, either properly or improperly, to any creature.” Thus “in Isaiah 42:8, after the words, ‘I am Jehovah, that is my name’ the text adds, ‘and my glory I will not give to another.’ ”169 Pictet here echoes Calvin precisely: “Hu is sometimes taken for a substantive, so as to be a proper name of God; but I explain it in a more simple manner, ‘It is my name,’ that is, ‘Jehovah is my own name, and cannot lawfully be given to any other.’ ”170 It is, therefore, the sole “proper” name of God.171 This interpretation of the meaning of Jehovah, moreover, stands in continuity with the exegetical tradition, with the views of the Reformers and also Calvin’s reading, both in the Institutes and in his commentary on Exodus 3:14—God’s “eternity and self-existence are announced by that wonderful name,” declares Calvin in the Institutes.172 That Jehovah is an “incommunicable” or “proper” name of God” appears from the words of the prophet Amos, “Jehovah is his name” (5:8; 9:6) and from Psalm 83:18, “That men may know, that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth.”173 This, writes Ridgley, “is never said of any other divine names, which are, in a limited sense, sometimes given to creatures; and, indeed, all creatures are expressly excluded from having a right hereunto.”174 The fact that Jehovah means “I AM” and that the Lord speaks of this particular self-disclosure (Ex. 3:14) as his “memorial unto all generations” also manifests that the name Jehovah is peculiar to God as an indication of “all the perfections of the divine nature.”175 These theological arguments, moreover, are confirmed by the grammar of the Hebrew Scriptures: the word Jehovah has no plural number, as being never designed to signify any more than the one God; neither has it any emphatical particle affixed to it, as other words in the Hebrew language have; and particularly several of the other names of God, which distinguishes him from others, who have those names sometimes applied to them; and the reason of this is, because the name Jehovah is never given to any creature.176 Even so, the Jewish practice of never pronouncing the name of God, but using circumlocutions such as “that name” or “that glorious name” or “that name that is not to be expressed” testify to the peculiarity of the holy name, as does the verbal replacement of the name with Adonai by readers of the Hebrew text. So also the Septuagint shows a similar respect by replacing “Jehovah” with “Kyrios,” the Greek translation of “Adonai.”177 A highly exegetical and traditionary reading of the divine name, with concern for the meaning and derivation of the Hebrew, is found in Ainsworth’s annotations on the Psalms: Iehovah] This is the chiefest name of the Eternal and most blessed God, so called of his Essence, being, or existence, which is simply one, Deut. 6:4. The force of this name the holy Ghost openeth up He that is, that was, & that wil be, or, is to come, Rev. 1:4,8, & 4:8, & 11:17, &
16:5. and the forme of the Hebrue name, implieth so much Ie, being a signe of the time to come, Ieheveh, he wil be; ho, of the time present, Hoveh, he that is; and vah, of the time past, Havah, he was. It importeth that God Is, and hath his being of himself from before all worlds, Isa. 44:6, that he giveth being or existence unto al things, and in him al are and consist, Act. 17:25, that he giveth being unto his word, effecting whatsoever he hath spoken, whether promises Exod. 6:3, Isa. 45:2, 3 or threatenings, Ezek. 5:17 & 7:27. It is in effect the same that Ejheh, I wil be, or, I am, as God calleth himself, Exod. 3:14.178
The Reformed orthodox draw various conclusions from the exegesis, offering a series of theological implications of God’s name. The name Jehovah means three things, writes Pictet, 1) An ens aeternum that exists of itself and that is independent of all others, and hence is simply called ho on. 2) A being from which all others have their being. 3) A being immutable and constant in its promises, in the sense of Exodus 6:3.179 The Dutch Annotations indicate that the text (Ex. 3:14), identifies a God who “is eternal in his being, faithful in his promises, and Almighty in the performance thereof.”180 In Gale’s view, Jehovah signifies four things—first, the eternity of God “that eminently comprehendeth al differences of time, as John expounds it, Rev. 1:4, 8; second, the simplicity of the divine essence and the identity of God as “Being it self”; third, the efficacy and causality of God in “giving being and Existence to al his Creation”; and fourth, the omnipotence and veracity of God “in giving being and effect to his promisses, and word.”181 The latter point is seen in the fact that the Holy Name was first revealed to Moses (cf. Ex. 6:3), “because he had not fulfilled and given effect to the promise made to [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob], and thence not opened his name.”182 At great length, Binning elaborates on the implications of unsearchableness, unchangeableness, and absoluteness that can be drawn from the divine name.183 In all these instances, the argument offers an example of the hermeneutical model of drawing necessary conclusions from the text,184 even as it evidences considerable dogmatic and exegetical continuity between the Reformed orthodoxy and much of the earlier Christian tradition. 4. Socinian objections to the tetragrammaton as sole name of God. As part of their exegetical polemic against traditional theism, seventeenthcentury Socinians argued that Jehovah cannot be a proper name for God inasmuch as it is applied to Christ and is, in a sense, communicated to creatures. The orthodox argue to the contrary that any use of the name Jehovah that does not point directly to God is a metonymy and a mystery pertaining to the covenant—used absolutely and without any figurative implication, the name can apply only to God himself. As it is written in Isaiah 42:8, “Ego sum Jehovah, hoc est nomen meum.” The name itself implies God’s eternity and independence quatenus Deus independenter per se existit and thus also his causality and his efficiency in causing all creatures to exist. It also signifies his immutability and his constancy in his promises.185 (As will be even more evident below in the discussion of the attributes, the Protestant orthodox do not separate the divine immutability from the idea of God’s constancy and faithfulness: immutability is never simply a
philosophical concept.) The orthodox also warn that the revelation of the name and the interpretation of its significance in no way remove the transcendence of God—God’s proper name does not make his essence any the less incomprehensible, nor does it show him to be an individual distinct, as a species from others of the same genus: it only evidences the way in which God will become known to us as utterly distinct from his creatures.186 The Socinian objections are easily overcome: their chief purpose in arguing that Jehovah is not the incommunicable name of God is to prove that its predication of the Son does not prove the Son’s divinity. Accordingly, they distort the meaning of texts to suit their doctrinal ends. Thus, they argue that the name Jehovah is given to places and things: Moses’ altar is called “Jehovah nissi,” “the Lord is my banner” (Ex. 17:15); Gideon’s altar is called “Jehovah shalom” (Judg. 6:24); Abraham’s altar for the sacrifice of Isaac, “Jehovah jireh” (Gen. 22:14); and Jerusalem itself is called by Exekiel, “Jehovah shammah” (Ezek. 48:35). Moreover, in Psalm 47:5, the phrase “Jehovah is gone up with a shout” refers to the Ark of the Covenant.187 In none of these examples, the orthodox counter, is the name of God predicated of a place or a thing. In the case of Moses’ altar, the words Jehovah nissi do not represent the name of the altar in a strict sense but rather signify “to the faith of those that came to worship there, that the Lord was their banner”: the name itself, therefore, pointed to God himself rather than to the altar. The same argument applies to Gideon’s altar: the name given signifies that the God worshiped there was the “God of peace.”188 Similarly, in the instance of Abraham’s place of sacrifice, the real name of the place was Mount Moriah, and the phrase “Jehovah jireh,” “God will provide,” indicates the gift of the lamb in place of Isaac: “So that the place was not really called Jehovah; but Abraham takes occasion, from what was done here, to magnify him … whom alone he calls Jehovah.”189 Even so, Ezekiel’s name for Jerusalem, Jehovah shammah, “the Lord is there,” does not name Jerusalem with the name of God but signifies God’s preeminent place in that city in the time of its final glory: “it is one thing to be and be called Jehovah; another for Jehovah to be and to dwell somewhere”—and it is the latter that is intended in the passage.190 The Psalmist’s statement that “Jehovah is gone up with a shout,” does refer to the progress of the ark into the city of David, but it hardly names the ark itself “Jehovah.” There are parallels to this text in Ps. 24:7 and Ps. 68:1—and in the latter the point is made very clear: “Rise up Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered,” refers, as do the other passages to the taking up of the ark into battle or for a ceremonial purpose. Such apostrophes are directed to
the ark but to God “of whose presence the ark was a symbol and pledge.”191 The Psalmist meant to indicate that “God had ordained that the mercy seat over the ark should be the immediate seat of his residence, from whence he would condescend to converse with men.”192 But since none are so stupid to suppose that inanimate things can have the divine perfections belonging to them, therefore, the principal thing, contended for in this argument is, that the ark was called Jehovah, because it was a sign and symbol of the divine presence; and from thence they conclude, that the name of God may be applied to a person that has no right to divine glory, as the sign is called by the name of the thing signified thereby.193 Again, however, the ark itself was not called Jehovah—rather the divine majesty or presence focused so on the ark that it could be referred to as Jehovah.194 Another set of Socinian arguments against the sole predication of the name Jehovah of God look to the Old Testament passages concerning the “Angel” or “Messenger of the Covenant.” This angel does indeed receive the divine name and says of himself, “I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3:6): or, to state the issue more accurately, “the Angel of the Lord” and “the Lord” seem to be one and the same in the text. The Reformed orthodox note in response that the name Jehovah is not applied indiscriminately to angels, but only to this particular “Angel of the Lord,” who is evidently divine and not distinguished from Jehovah essentially, but only personally—not a created angel, but the Son of God, “in a prelude to his incarnation.”195 This angel was identified, moreover, by the ancient Jewish thinkers as the Word of the Lord, a point argued at length by Allix,196 or as the archangel Michael, frequently associated in the Christian exegetical tradition, in such passages as Genesis 32:24, Daniel 10:21, Jude 9, and Rev. 12:7, with Christ.197 “That it was the person of the Sonne … rather than of the Father or of the Holy Ghost,” Willet comments, “is thus shewed; the Father is never said to be an Angell, that is, a messenger or sent: nor is yet the holy Spirit in scripture called by that name, but the Sonne is called the Angell of the Covenant, Malach, 3:1 in respect of his incarnation to come, when he was sent of his Father into the world … which name of Angell given unto Christ is a title of office, not shewing his nature.”198 Drawing on Allix, Ridgley notes that an angel appeared to John (Rev. 22:8–9) and refused the divine honor accorded to the Angel of the Lord —a fact that supports the contention that the Angel of Exodus 3:2 and Malachi 3:1 was in fact “a divine Person.”199 The orthodox, recognizing the validity of the traditional reading of these texts as theophanic, typically added
a christological interpretation as well, on what they assumed were sound exegetical grounds. “The angel of the Lord,” Poole comments, was not a created angel, but the Angel of the covenant, Christ Jesus, who then and ever was God, and was to be a man, and to be sent into the world in our flesh, as a messenger from God. And these temporary apparitions of his were presages or forerunners of his more solemn mission and coming, and therefore he is fitly called an Angel. That this Angel was no creature, plainly appears by the whole context, and specially by his saying, I am the Lord, &c. The angels never speak that language in Scripture, but, I am sent from God, and, I am thy fellow servant, &c.200
Similarly, the exegetical tradition, including the exegesis of the Reformers, favored the reading of the reference in Malachi 3:1 to “the angel” or “messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in” as a reference to Christ as Lord in his office of Mediator—“God manifested in the flesh” and, at the same time, “God’s minister and interpreter” in the confirmation of the covenant.201 5. Hayah—the “I AM.” Related to the name Jehovah there is, potentially, another name, Hayah, which also “denotes the divine essence.” Most of the Reformed thinkers from Zwingli onward tend to discuss the “I AM” in relation to the tetragrammaton rather than identify it as a distinct name, but a few writers separate out the discussion. Thus, Pictet notes that it is disputed among the learned whether or not “hayah” is actually a name, but it is clear from the text of Exodus 3:14 “that the same one is designated by this word, as is understood by the name YHWH.”202 The “learned” to whom Pictet refers included some of the most noted Hebraists and exegetes of the day—among them Sixtus Amama, Drusius, Johannes Buxtorf the younger, and Thomas Gataker—all of whom wrote extensively on the problem of the divine names, specifically on the tetragrammaton and its relationship with the verb to be. Some of the writers of the seventeenth century even take the time to note that Lyra’s fifteenth-century editor, Paul of Burgos, denied that hayah, or, specifically, the ehjeh of Exodus 3:14 was a name.203 There is an awareness in all of these writers that the Hebrew language functions rather differently than Greek or Latin, but an equal awareness that the close association between the divine name and the verb “to be” demands that existence and being be somehow identified as peculiarly belonging to God.204 The orthodox theologians, many of whom were themselves exegetes well versed in ancient languages, stood in this case, as in most others, firmly in an established exegetical tradition in which the relationship had already been strongly established between the verb, hayah and the divine name, Jahve or Jehovah. The text of Exodus 3:14 does, after all, present the phrase “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be” as an answer to the question, “Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel and say unto them, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say unto me, What is his name, what shall I say unto them?”—“Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” The simple sense of the text is that “I AM” is the name of God.205 The basic religious significance of the name is “the reality of his being, in opposition to idols, which are but imaginary and fantastic things.”206 The Hebrew, as many of the orthodox exegetes and theologians indicate, is a future tense and best translates as “I will be who [or what] I will be.” This
literal reading yields a sense of the constancy of the divine “nature, will, and word” inasmuch as the God who made his promises to Abraham remains the same and delivers the substance of his promises to later generations. Poole argues two possible theological implications of this use of the future: He useth the future tense; either, 1. Because that tense in the use of the Hebrew tongue comprehends all times past, present and to come, to signify that all times are alike to God, and all times are present to him; and therefore what is here, I shall be, is rendered, I am, by Christ, John 8:58. See Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8. Or, 2. To intimate, though darkly … the mystery of Christ’s incarnation. I shall be what I shall be, i.e., Godman; and I who come now in an invisible, though glorious, manner to deliver you from this temporal bondage, shall in due time come visibly and by incarnation, to save you … from your sins, and from the wrath to come. Of this name of God, see Rev. 1:4, 8;
16:5.207 6. Elohim: generic but plural. “Elohim,” note the orthodox, is a name that simply indicates “God” in the most general sense and is applied also, therefore, to “God’s viceregent’s on earth,” to angels, magistrates, and even to “false gods.”208 The name Elohim, therefore, corresponds with the Greek theos and the Latin deus. The orthodox raise questions, moreover, concerning the category to which the name belongs: it does not function as a proper name for God, certainly—but does it even belong to the other category of essential names, the “common” names for God? Rijssen and Mastricht note that it can be understood as an indication of divine work (officium) rather than a designation of the deitas or essence of God. It is in this fashion, after all, that the Jews interpret those passages in Scripture which can be interpreted as referring to Christ or to the Holy Spirit as Elohim: they are identified under the name “God” inasmuch as they belong to the work of God. Thus, Jehovah alone designates God himself and no other, while Elohim is applied analogically to other beings.209 More problematic still, from the orthodox perspective, was the Socinian appropriation of this pattern of Jewish exegesis: The word God is two wayes chiefly used in Scripture. The first is, when it denoteth him, who both in the heavens, and on the earth, doth so rule and exercise dominion over all, that he acknowledgeth no superior, and is so the Author and Principall of all things, as that he dependeth on none. The other is, when it designeth him who hath some sublime dominion from that one God, and so is in some sort partaker of his Deity. Hence it is that Scripture calleth that one God the God of Gods, or the most high God. Ps. 50:1; Heb. 7:1. And in the latter signification, the Son of God is in certain places in the Scripture dignified with the
title of a God.210 This particular argument serves, among other things, to link the initial discussion of divine names with the discussion of the Trinity—in the initial discussion, presenting the problem of the legitimate application of the name to God and its plurality to the adumbration of the Trinity, in the later discussion specifically raising the issue of the title “Son of God” and its implication for such categories of the doctrinal discussion as the full divinity, specifically the aseity of the Son. The Socinian exegesis of Elohim/God also raised, tangentially, the issues of Christian exegesis of the Old Testament and of the character of the appropriation of Jewish exegesis by the Reformed of the seventeenth century.211 With reference to the doctrine of God and the divine names, this argument is somewhat difficult to counter, insofar as the Reformed agree with it in general in terms of the identification of angels, false gods, and other heavenly beings as Elohim. Nonetheless, in those cases in which the word must be translated as referring to the true God—including those places where it appears to refer to Christ or the Spirit—it is not at all applied analogically, but is used as a reference to the absolute rule or dominium of God, to his justitia and judicium just as El typically refers to his strength or fortitudo. Again, as in the case of the name Jehovah, this echoes the reading of the Reformers: “power and might are contained under the title Elohim,” wrote Calvin.212 Indeed, if Elohim indicates nothing more than a divine work or discharge of a divine duty, Mastricht queries, what work or duty might that be? He notes that other names denoting duties invariably correspond with the name of the duty —as rex with regendo and Dominus with dominando; but neither Elohim nor its Greek equivalent, theos, have such a word corresponding with them.213 Elohim, translated as Deus, and in the abstract as deitas, denotes, according to Rijssen, natura Entitas perfectissimi and is synonymous with the term natura vel forma Dei.214 The peculiarity of the plural form, Elohim, was also the subject of debate. In general, the Protestant orthodox, Reformed and Lutheran alike, followed the tradition in affirming the plural form as an indication of the plurality of persons in God: Mastricht cites Zanchi, Martyr, Junius, Mercer, Danaeus, and Drusius as advocating this view.215 The Socinians, to the contrary, assume not only a oneness of essence, but also a oneness of person in God, and insist that the plural form indicates either a plurality of powers or of attributes and virtues. If, counters Mastricht, the word Elohim indicates a unity of person and a plurality of powers, why the plural verb in Gen. 1:26? Nor can the use of Elohim in this passage be interpreted as attributing creative powers to angels: this is shown to be false by Jer. 10:10–11.216 Rijssen adds that the
name Elohim, though it allows the doctrine of the Trinity, does not provide ground for a deduction of that doctrine either etymologically or by reason of the plural form of the noun—trinitarian implications derive from the context, and from “the subject and circumstances” of the use of the term. Thus, Elohim does not always signify Trinity.217 Indeed, in the early eighteenth century, Francken appears to have given up the trinitarian reference and fastened on the creative and federal relationships of the name Elohim, breaking somewhat with the paradigm of his predecessor, Mastricht.218 7. Shaddai and El Shaddai. Zanchi, Cocceius, Mastricht, Pictet, and various other Reformed writers also understand the names Shaddai and El Shaddai as having considerable importance for the doctrine of God. They also offer several derivations of Shaddai: it might derive from the verb sdd, indicating “he makes waste” or “empty”. In this case, Shaddai would refer to the power of God, “by which God has created all things and is capable of reducing them to waste.” Pictet notes that it is this derivation that probably lies behind the Septuagint translation of Shaddai as pantokrator or ho ta panta poiesas—ruler or maker of all things. Some have derived the name, however, from the noun sd, a female breast, indicating a meaning similar to the pagan representations of Diana, Isis, and Ceres as large-breasted (mammosa)—namely, as “nourishing all things”—an etymological point known to the Reformers as well as to the later orthodox.219 The probable majority of writers favors, however, a derivation of the name from dy (dalet yod), indicating sufficiency or autarchia: If this last derivation is the correct one, we understand why God, revealing himself to Abraham (Gen. 17:1), calls himself by this name: in order to intimate that he did not covenant with him as if he needed Abraham’s help or resources; on the contrary, [he calls himself by this name in order to indicate] that he is so abundant in goodness that he can fulfill all of the promises that he so rightly set forth in his covenant.220 Zanchi cites rabbinic exegesis in justification of the point.221 Others render Shaddai as “Almighty” and El Shaddai as “God Almighty.”222 8. Other names of God. Pictet and several of the other orthodox writers add a brief discussion of the names Yah and El, the former signifying either “to be fit” or “to be suitable” and the latter “strength or might” thereby indicating that God is omnipotent, having all power, virtue, and efficacy.223 El, moreover, translates as Θεός or Deus.224 Pictet concludes his examination of the names of God with a review of several other biblical designations of God—Adonai, Sabaoth, Elyon, Theos, and Kyrios. Adonai, Lord, indicates dominion and identifies God as the “one who subjects all things to himself” and was used in various forms by the ancient pagan nations.225 In
this sense, moreover, the name has trinitarian implications and may refer not merely to the Godhead but either to the Father or the Son, understood personally, or indeed to the Trinity. Thus, in the theophany of Isaiah 6:1–6, the “Lord sitting upon a throne” can refer either to 1. God the son, who frequently appeared to the patriarchs and prophets, and that sometimes in the form of a man. Or, rather, 2. The Divine Majesty as he subsisteth in three persons, as may be gathered from the plural number us, used of this Lord, ver. 8, and comparing other scriptures; for God the Father is described as sitting upon a throne, Can. 7:9, 13, and elsewhere; and the glory of God here manifested is said to be Christ’s glory, John 17:41, and the words of the Lord here following are said to be spoken by the Holy Ghost, Acts 28:25.226 Sabaoth is not properly a name of God, but rather a designation added to the name of God that implies the exercise of divine lordship over many people— much as the pagan Bacchus was called sabasiou by his worshipers.227 Similarly, Elyon is not a name, but an epithet signifying exalted status or supremacy, like the Greek, heliou.228 To these Hebrew terms, the two principle Greek names of God must be added: Theos and Kyrios. Pictet notes that the former name denotes the nature of God while the latter, meaning “Lord,” is frequently used to translate Jehovah but is “especially ascribed to Christ the Redeemer, who is called ‘Lord of Lords.’ ” Since, moreover, Kyrios translates the Hebrew Adonai, its use as a divine name is largely exhausted by the discussions of Jehovah and Adonai—including, as we have seen, its christological implication as well. The term is also sometimes attributed impropriè to creatures.229 God is also called “Father,” Pater. Both the Reformers and the Reformed orthodox were aware that the name “Father” is given to God in several ways: there is the “essential” understanding of the name, which refers to the one God as Creator—and there is the “personal” understanding of the name, which refers to the first person of the Trinity. Leaving aside the “personal” or hypostatic understanding,230 the “essential” meaning of the name also bears a double implication. Calvin, for example, is famous for his assertion that God is revealed in general as Creator and is only known as Father in through Christ—that in the present “ruin” of the world, God is not experienced as father apart from Christ.231 Still, in the subsequent discussion of the general revelation of God in nature, Calvin reminds his readers that the apostle Paul cited the pagan poet Aratus as calling God “Father” and identifying human beings as God’s “offspring.” Calvin comments, “in the same way also, from natural instinct, and, as it were, at the dictation of experience, heathen poets called him the Father of men.” There is, therefore, a general sense in which all
