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August 01, 2005

Ch.VII. Q.42. Divine Names

THE Names of God in Scripture are so many intimations of His nature. Some of the more important ones are Elohim, Jehovah, Adonai, Father, and the threefold Name.1

2. ELOHIM is a plural noun, used in the first chapter of Genesis and in many other places. It signifies the Mighty One, and is employed where the creative power and omnipotence of God are described or implied. Its plural form may be interpreted as a plural majesty, but also as indicating the plural personality of God.2

3. JEHOVAH signifies the self-existence and eternal unchangeableness of God. It is the incommunicable Name, which the Jews never pronounced, but read as if it were Adonai. In the A. V. it is translated LORD, and printed in capitals.3 It occurs frequently in conjunction with Elohim, when the phrase is translated LORD God.

4. ADONAI signifies Lord, expressing possession and dominion over all. Like Elohim, it occurs in the plural.

5. FATHER signifies the Producer of all things, and involves the ideas of authority and providence derived from that relation. God is Father of all things as their Creator, and of men as their personal Governor; but especially of baptized Christians, who have been mystically united with His Only-Begotten, and made His children par excellence by adoption and grace. This Name is also specially applied to the First Person of the Blessed Trinity as the unoriginate source of the Godhead.4

6. The most perfect Name of God is that of the Blessed Trinity—THE FATHER, THE SON, AND THE HOLY GHOST, which Name is one and singular, though threefold in its articulation. It expresses the internal and personal distinctions in the Godhead, and the eternal relations which are involved in them.5

7. The Names of God constitute one of five ways by which Holy Scripture reveals God to us. These ways are the following: (a) by His Names; (b) by the works which they ascribe to Him; (c) by the attributes which they predicate of Him; (d) by the worship of Him which they prescribe; (e) by the revelation of "the fulness of the Godhead bodily," in Christ.6




1 Hodge, Outlines, pp. 134-135; Owen, Dogmatics, ch. ii. § 14; St. Thos., Summa, I. xiii.; Petavius, De Dogmatibus, T. I. lib. viii. ch. 6-9; Suarez, Summa, Tr. I. lib. ii. ch. 32; Weidner, Theologia, p. 27.

2 Liddon, Divinity of Christ, pp. 49-51; Driver, Genesis, pp. 402.

3 Driver, pp. 407-409.

4 Pearson, Creed, pp. 45-50; 52-74.

5 Mason, Faith of the Gospel, ch. ii. § 2.

6 Hodge, p. 134.

Posted by Debra Bullock at August 1, 2005 09:11 PM

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