Categories: Bible Lessons 3 Comments

#DailyDevotion Jesus Of Nazareth IS Yahweh!

#DailyDevotion Jesus Of Nazareth Is Yahweh!

1Co 12:1-3  Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.  (2)  You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.  (3)  Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

Now we might get ourselves into all sorts of problems with the word ‘gifts’ which isn’t there in the original Greek. It’s just ‘spiritual’ an adjective turned noun. But about such things Paul doesn’t want us to be uninformed as we were when we were pagans led astray to mute idols. We have received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. What is important here is no one can say ‘Jesus is accursed’ who has the Spirit and one can only say ‘Jesus is Lord’ by the Holy Spirit.

Now on that we should have ourselves a little discussion. What does it mean to say Jesus is Lord. Well there are a number of heretics out there who have fallen away from the faith who say Jesus is Lord but who do not have the Spirit. Lord here does not mean king or ruler or even the guiding star of my life. Many a false teacher can say those things. What does Paul mean when he says ‘Jesus is Lord’?

He mean this, if you go look in your Old Testament, there are a lot of places where you will see God called the LORD. It is Lord spelled with all capital letters or small capital letters (depending on the publisher). Why do they do that? Because some places in the Old Testament lord is spelled with lower case letters. Sometimes it is spelled with a capital L with lower case letters. But when it is all capital letters or small capital letters, that is telling us something. It is telling us the divine name the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had given the Israelites to call him, oftentimes called the Tetragrammaton (four letters) is what the Hebrew text has. That would be YHWH, Yahweh, Jehovah. The Jews after the exile from Babylon didn’t want to break the second commandment by saying the name of God so instead of using the name he had given them they used adonai which means Lord. You get Jehovah from using the consonants of YHWH and the vowels from adonai.

In any case, when Paul says no one says Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit he is confessing Jesus is YHWH, Yahweh, Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Heretics cannot and will not confess Jesus is the God who is the uncreated, Living God. They cannot confess he is the God of Israel become man. Only by the Holy Spirit can we confess Jesus is YHWH. That is what Paul is saying here. Jesus is not just some subordinate demi-god. He is God incarnate, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, one in being and substance with the Father through whom all things were made visible and invisible. Now if you can confess this and you believe this with your heart, then you have the Holy Spirit and faith that saves and is conforming you into his image and likeness. If you cannot say this, then you do not yet have the Spirit and do not have faith that saves yet. Turn to Jesus, confess your sins and believe he is your God, the God of the Old Testament in the flesh who has come to save you.

Heavenly Father, grant us faith and the Holy Spirit that we may always confess Jesus is Lord to your glory and to his that we may become participants in your glory at the end of the age. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Share this post
Rev. Guillaume J. S. Williams, Sr.

The Reverend Guillaume Williams is the Pastor of Hope Lutheran Chapel of Osage Beach, Missouri. His pastoral ministry with Hope began in 2005 where he preaches the Christ crucified.

Comments (3)

  1. The Synoptic Gospels and Acts never say that Jesus is YHWH. It is the fourth gospel that promotes what nowadays we would call identity theft by claiming that Jesus is YHWH. The gospel of Matthew in the final chapter has YHWH superannuated (retired). It is like in the Godfather movie when Vito turns the family business over to Michael. Isaiah tells us that YHWH is the rock and there is no other. (Is 44:8). You have been told.

    1. Thank you for your thoughts. The Scriptures are one just as God is one. In the New Testament, much like translations in the Old Testament, the name YHWH is replaced with adonai (Hebrew for Lord) and in the New Testament (YHWH is a Hebrew word and the New Testament is Greek) that name YHWH is not used but instead, follows the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible and just uses Kyrios (Greek for Lord). So where Jesus is called Lord, my Lord and my God, etc. in the Gospels, Acts, and the letters from the Apostles, that Kyrios is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew adonai, which replaces YHWH. Hence, Jesus is YHWH, Jesus is the Adonai, He is the Kyrios, He is the Angel of the Lord who is speaks the Father’s word, leads the Israelites, is worshipped as YHWH and and praised as YHWH in the Old Testament.

      May the Lord our God continue to have you grow in wisdom, knowledge and faith.

    2. Jesus is that rock.
      (Mat 7:24) “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
      (Mat 7:25) And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
      (Rom 9:33) as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
      (1Co 10:4) and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
      (1Pe 2:8) and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

Leave a Reply to State Of The Equation Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *