The Name · The Symbolism of Scripture
The Name
In Scripture a name is not a label stuck on a person. It is the person himself, and his authority, in a word. Once that is in place, a tower you can run into, a commandment about speech, and a name given to someone who already had all of them stop being puzzles.
What It Stands For
— the person, in a wordThe Hebrew שֵׁם shem (H8034) covers what English splits between name, reputation, memorial and authority. To make a name is to become somebody; to cut off a name is to end a family line; to act in a name is to act with the standing of the one named. None of that is metaphor in Hebrew — it is the ordinary range of the word.
- “The name of the LORD is a strong tower”Proverbs 18:10The LORD Himself is the refuge. You cannot run into a word.
- “You shall not take the name of the LORD in vain”Exodus 20:7You shall not attach His person and authority to something empty — an oath, a claim, a cause.
- “Hallowed be thy name”Matthew 6:9Let who you are be treated as holy. The petition is about God, not about vocabulary.
- “Whatever you ask in my name”John 14:13Asking as His representative, on His authority — the way an envoy speaks in a king's name.
- “No other name under heaven whereby we must be saved”Acts 4:12No other PERSON. Peter has just healed a man and been asked by what power.
- “A name which is above every name”Philippians 2:9A standing above every standing — given, the passage says, to the one who had emptied Himself.
Its Presentation Through Scripture
— twelve stops, in canon order — and Scripture's own links markedAnd out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
The first job given to a human being is naming, and Genesis says whatever he called a creature, that was its name. Naming is an act of authority from the first chapter it appears in.
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Moses asks for a name and is given a sentence. God's answer to the question is not a label but a statement about existence — and the divine name has a whole wing of its own.
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave anyone unpunished who takes His name in vain.
A commandment about a name, ranked third — above murder and theft in the order. That ranking only makes sense if a name is the person.
Instead, you must seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to establish as a dwelling for His Name, and there you must go.
God chooses a place to put His name there. The phrase runs through Deuteronomy and Kings, and it means presence rather than signage.
Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
Chariots and horses on one side, the name of the LORD on the other. The comparison is not word against word — it is hardware against a Person.
The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.
A strong tower, and the righteous runs into it. You cannot run into a word, and Proverbs is not asking anyone to try.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
A child is given four names in a row, and each is a claim: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. The names ARE the doctrine.
So then, this is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.
The first petition Jesus teaches is about the name — and it is a request that God's own self be held holy, before anything is asked for.
And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
Asking in His name, and the reason given is the Father's glory in the Son. What that phrase does and does not licence has its own study.
Salvation exists in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
The most exclusive sentence in the New Testament, and it is an answer to a question about power: by what name have you done this?
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
A name given — to the one who already had every name there was. The passage attaches it to what He had just done, not to what He eternally is.
He has eyes like blazing fire, and many royal crowns on His head. He has a name written on Him that only He Himself knows.
And the last word on the subject withholds one: a name written that no one knows but Himself. The symbol ends in reserve.
name of the Lord--manifested perfections (Ps 8:1; 20:2), as faithfulness, power, mercy, &c., on which men rely. is safe--literally, "set on high, out of danger"
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Proverbs 18:10
The gift of fortitude is given by God protecting. For God protects us according to hierarchical ordering, fortifying us within and without. It is written in Proverbs: "The name of the Lord is a most strong tower; the just man runs to it and shall
Bonaventure· Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 5, 1257Franciscan
Proverbs 18:10
JFB’s gloss is the definition this page is built on, given in two words: manifested perfections. The name is what God has made known of Himself — faithfulness, power, mercy — which is exactly what a person can run into and be safe.
Why a commandment guards a nameAquinas and Bonaventure on Exodus 20:7
Thomas Aquinas, in his exposition of the commandments: This is the Second Commandment of the law. Just as there is but one God whom we must worship, so there is only one God whom we should reverence in a special manner. This, first of all, has reference to the name of God.
Bonaventure reads the two commandments as a pair: Just as in the first commandment humble adoration of the supreme majesty is commanded, so in this second commandment faithful confession of the supreme truth is commanded, and the denial of truth is forbidden.
Both are making the same structural point. The first commandment governs worship; the second governs speech about God— and in a world where an oath in a name was a binding legal act, taking the name in vain was not chiefly bad language. It was attaching God’s own authority to something empty.
Where It Points
— a name given to someone who had them allTherefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.'Wherefore' — the name is attached to the obedience described in the verses before it.
The sentence is strange on any reading. How is a name given to one who was in the form of God? The fourth-century commentators worked at exactly this, and their answer is careful rather than clever.
"Therefore," he says, "God exalted him." But who was it that was exalted? Evidently the one who underwent the torture of the cross and death. It was not God himself, who is always on high throughout.
Gaudentius of Rimini· On the Priority of the Father, 360Latin, fourth century
Philippians 2:9
The "name that is above every name" is God. It is not given to God in order that he should become God. For God the Son was the Word in the beginning with the Father.
Gaudentius of Rimini· On the Priority of the Father, 360Latin, fourth century
Philippians 2:9
The distinction is worth having: the giving does not make Him what He was not. What is exalted is the one who went to the cross — the Word made flesh, in the standing He took on — and the confession Paul quotes next is Isaiah 45:23, spoken there by God about Himself.
Salvation exists in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”The council's actual question, two verses earlier: 'by what power, or by what name, have ye done this?'
"And there is salvation in no one else." Here lofty truths are already being proclaimed. Yes, as soon as the hour came to teach, the apostles set aside the prophecies; and when the time came to speak with boldness, they were already setting forth their
Theophylact of Ohrid· Commentary on Acts, 1107Eastern Orthodox
Acts 4:12
What Scripture says outright
- Exodus 3:14
God answers a request for His name with a statement about being. The divine name and its handling belong to its own wing.
- Isaiah 9:6
Four names given to a child, each of them a claim, in a verse that presents them as His name rather than His titles.
- Acts 4:12
Peter states the exclusivity outright, before the council, in answer to a question about authority.
- Philippians 2:9
Paul says the name was given, and says what it was given for.
What readers have heard in it
Readings named as readings.
- Philippians 2:9
That “the name above every name” is specifically Jesus, or specifically Lord (rendering YHWH), or the divine nature itself as Gaudentius holds. All three are ancient and held by serious readers. Paul does not specify which.
- John 14:13
That appending the phrase to a prayer is what “in His name” means. It is the commonest reading in practice and the weakest in the text; the study of that verse works through what the phrase actually carries.
- Proverbs 18:10
That the verse teaches a practice of repeating divine names for protection. Proverbs describes running to a tower — an act of trust in a Person, and the next verse pointedly contrasts it with the rich man’s wealth as his imagined strong city.
The Voices
— named, with the work to go and readThe best short line on this symbol is Ambrose’s, and it is one sentence: reading Exodus 3:14, he says the true name of God is Eternity. He draws the Christological consequence in the same breath elsewhere. JFB supply the working definition — manifested perfections — and Aquinas and Bonaventure between them explain why a commandment guards speech about a name at all. Gaudentius, arguing in the fourth century’s hardest debates, is careful in exactly the place carelessness does damage.
Ambrose on the name that is EternityLetter 8.8 and the Exposition of the Christian Faith
“The Lord said, I am that I am, thou shalt say, I AM hath sent me unto you. This is the true Name of God -- Eternity.”
And in the Exposition of the Christian Faith, drawing the line forward: Christ therefore is and always is; for he who is, always is. And Christ always is, of whom Moses says, "He that is has sent me."
Ambrose is reading Exodus 3:14 as a statement about existence itself, and then applying it to Christ. The first half is what the verse says; the second is a reading, and one the Gospel of John gives real support to. Both belong to the I AM sayings.
Where Marcus Lands
A commandment guarding a name; a tower a man can run into; four names given to a child; a name given to the one who had already emptied Himself — and one at the end that nobody knows.
Where to Go Next
— grouped, because a pile of titles is not a hand-offThe name, and the studies around it
Where the name itself is the subject
Where a name is given
Where the picture goes on
Its neighbours in the index
The Symbolism of Scripture gathers every picture the Bible thinks in. This one sits with: