The Infinite Became Intimate
I always appreciate a great story.
A great story has the effect of drawing the reader deeper into the narrative with each page. The characters, the setting, and the plot can often transform a disengaged reader into one who identifies with the storyline because of personal experience.
A talented writer uses the familiar to engage, then lift the reader into the world of the author’s imagination. Usually, a plot develops that follows a path that includes twists and turns, but ends by bringing the loose threads of subplots and other entanglements to a climactic conclusion. Great examples of this kind of storytelling are found in works such as C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress.
The greatest story by far presents God as Author revealing Himself as the One who plays the primary role. As we read this story, we want to know who He is, what He is like, and what is His Name! God is revealed in Genesis 1:1 as Elohim - the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth. Interestingly, Elohim is paired with the specific act identifying Him as unique among the multitude of gods worshiped in the Ancient Near East. Although the Hebrew word elohim (lower case “e”) could refer to any pagan god, no other god could list the creation of heaven and earth among his achievements.
Thus, in the first verse of the Bible we come across a twist: God is unlike any other. The next twist occurs in Genesis 2:4, where God appears as Yahweh Elohim - Lord God connecting God with his creation of the man and the woman. Yahweh speaks of intimacy and closeness.
In the Hebrew Bible, the only other place we find this divine title, Yahweh Elohim, outside of Genesis 2 and 3 is Exodus 9:30. Knowing God’s personal Name as Yahweh, Moses speaks to Pharaoh after a feigned attempt at confession to save his skin during the seventh plague of hail. Pharaoh only acknowledged Yahweh’s right to judge his sin, but Moses recognized that Pharaoh had not yet feared or held the Name Yahweh Elohim in high honor.
In Isaiah, the Lord tells the prophet to meet Ahaz, the king of Judah, and speak to him concerning Rezin and Syria, not fear their threats against Judah but that the Lord himself will exact judgments on his enemies. The Lord even challenges Ahaz to ask a sign of Yahweh your God, but Ahaz refuses out of an apparent lack of faith.
Finally, in Isaiah 7:14, Yahweh, having given Ahaz a chance to speak, provides the sign - “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” In Ahaz’s despair, God’s sign will twist the plot yet again by using a lowly infant born in a stable of hay to save the world, not by force or military power, but by meekness, humility, and death. Matthew recognized this One as none other than Jesus, whose name Immanuel means God with us. God, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, chose to live among His creation. Jesus’ name derives from the Hebrew Yeshua or Joshua, meaning Yahweh is salvation!
Moses, Pharaoh, and Ahaz all knew God’s name differently, but only Jesus himself embodied the name in such an unexpected way. The infinite became intimate! God himself enters into our story, ugly and messy as our story is. Yahweh is the God who meets us in our fears, failures, and sins to call us to true repentance.
Then the final unexpected climatical ending: God invites us to step into his story by faith and live his story in a broken world! His strength becomes ours. We now bear God’s Name as Christ-follower so that others may enter in and declare His salvation through all the earth! Live for Him in such a way that our words and life reflect the intimacy and worship we have with our God. Others will then read our story and glorify the Name that is above every name!
~ Shan Norwood and his wife Rina have been members at LIFE Fellowship for seven years. Shan is a recent graduate of Gordon Conwell Seminary and holds degrees in Biblical Studies and Christian Thought. He also serves as a LIFE University instructor and his class How To Read The Bible for All It's Worth begins Sept. 15. Shan is also stepdad to Micah and Caleb Godsey.