Sermon: A Name's Significance

A Name Ties You Down
#1712B
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 03-Jun-23; 46 minutes 2023-06-03

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During an episode of a television drama I watched this week, a young man recounted what he had heard a wise woman say about names. In the show, a chieftain was angling to become king, but he was being stymied by the traditional tribal system in which the tribal chiefs would meet and make decisions as a council and they were all supposed to be equals. Now, this young man, who was an advisor to this particular chieftain, had an idea of how the wannabe king could get the people to accept him as their sole leader. And it came down to what this wise woman had said. What she had said was, "Your name ties you down."

In the drama the citizens did not think of themselves nor did they see each other in terms of a country. They were not nationally oriented people, they were tribally oriented. So they did not think of themselves like we do as Americans, or as the French do as French, or the English as English, or the Japanese as Japanese. Those are whole nations and people think of themselves nationally in our times.

But this was a culture that was supposed to be thousands of years ago and they were just getting these kinds of governments started, these ideas about government. So instead, these people thought of themselves as members of a tribe, of an extended family that inhabited a certain space in the region's geography and so they did not consider other tribes to be part of them. They considered them to be separate. Even though they were ultimately of the same stock, they considered themselves different because they were of a different tribe. So their tribal designation, in the way that this story was developed, was the first part of their name. So each member of a tribe had essentially the same first name and then they would have a particular name second.

So their loyalties were to their tribes first, before anything else. That is, they were loyal to their extended families. They were loyal to the chieftains rather than to the larger nation. They were tied down to their tribes.

The young man, the advisor, tells the chieftain that he, in order to become king over this country of many tribes, would have to give the people a new name to tie them down to him so they could start thinking of themselves nationally and at the same time erode their loyalty to their tribes because he wanted their loyalty to be to him. Once the young man gives this advice, the wannabe king agrees. "That's a great idea!" and asks the young man to have the wise woman think of a new name for the new nation, the new kingdom.

So on the day of his coronation, this wise woman, who happened to be a high priestess, gives a speech to kick off the man's new government. And she goes on about how this is a wonderful thing. They will be powerful, they will do this, they will do that, and everybody will eat, and all those good things that people want. And then she tells them that she is going to give them a new name. But ironically, the new name she gives them is "subjects." The reason she said that was because it was the truth. This new name would define that they were losing their freedom and would be subject to the new king in everything. He would own everything. He would have the final decision in everything. And if he wanted to kill you, he could kill you, because he had the ultimate authority. And so in this way, their new name would tie them down to the new king.

Now this is fiction. It was a drama, but it was based on truth or at least a true principle, because Scripture talks a lot about names. It frequently emphasizes names, tells us people's names and what they mean. And so it is obviously a big flashing sign that this must be important.

God considers names to be important. He names things what they are. So when we study the Bible, it is a very good Bible study principle not to gloss over names that you come across because they may have a deep meaning or maybe a deep meaning, especially for God's elect, who are supposed to be studying into these things a little bit more deeply than others. Because we have to remember this principle, as the wise woman said, your name ties you down. Anybody else's name ties that person down too.

I am tied to the name Ritenbaugh, the clan Ritenbaugh, if you will. It means something. It is a German name; it was originally German but Ritenbaugh was not originally German. That was actually an Americanization of our German name, which was Reichenbach, which means Rich Brook in German. Why they did not, when they came over on the boat, just name us Rich Brook and not try to anglicize Reichenbach? But that is what they did way back there in the 1830s or so; it is an apocryphal story, I am sure, that it was actually the school teachers that did that because they could not spell Reichenbach. And so they made it into Ritenbaugh? Why not turn it into Smith?

But in these times being a Ritenbaugh means something. Things that my dad has done in his life and ministry reflect on anybody who is a Ritenbaugh and we are expected to live up to that name. And the same could be said for anybody, it does not have to be just a Ritenbaugh. And whatever your name is, there is meaning there, there is a lot of experience there, there is probably wisdom there, there is skills there, and if you have a certain name people expect certain things of you because of what they know about you.

So in that way a name, whatever your name is, ties you down to those expectations. The name Ritenbaugh for a long time was tied down to a geographical area because we were all from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh. Ritenbaugh's are Pittsburghers. Now, we have since dispersed from Pennsylvania. There are probably a lot fewer Ritenbaugh's in Pennsylvania than there used to be, but it tied us down. That is why some of us speak funny, because we speak little remnant Pittsburgese. But you can see how these identities can tie a person to a place, a time, or some sort of principle, or even an occupation, or what have you. A name, once it is given, ties a person to it.

Now, the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary says this in its article titled "Naming."

The biblical concept of naming was rooted in the ancient world's understanding that a name expressed essence. To know the name of a person was to know that person's total character and nature.

Think about this. The name of a thing or a person defined it in some way, or even we could say limited it in some way. Because no name can be comprehensive about anything. Certainly a person's personality and character are far broader than any one name can define, can explain. And so you can look at it that way. That a name, if it is given for a particular reason, focuses that person's essence on something, whatever it happens to be.

So to know, let us say, Abram's name from Scripture was to see him as an exalted father because that is what the name Abram means. And probably his mom or his dad had given him the name Abram because they expected him to be an exalted father. They wanted him to father more people for their tribe. And if you father more people for your tribe, you become more powerful and that exaltation then follows. That is what they expected of Abram.

But when God changed his name to Abraham—very similar name, but a different name. And God did this at the time of the Abrahamic covenant there in Genesis 17, particularly He changed his name in verse 5. But by changing his name from Abram to Abraham, his destiny changed. He now had a spiritual destiny that was far greater than just exalted father. Now his name meant the father of many nations or a father of a multitude. And over the last, what would it be, 3,500 years to 4,000 years, we have seen that prophecy fulfilled and it will be continuing to be fulfilled. Or maybe I should say, the focus of his name will be fulfilled for all eternity. Because not only did he become the progenitor of physical Israel, he became the progenitor of spiritual Israel, the Israel of God, because is he not called the father of the faithful? And so that was a very weighty name to put on a man.

I am sure Abraham did not realize just how weighty it was when it was changed. Now, it was all tied up too in the fact that Abraham did not have a son at the time from Sarah, whose name was also changed at the time. It was Sarai and changed to Sarah. But I could see Abraham thinking, "What is God thinking? He's calling me the father of many nations. He's calling me the father of a multitude. And I don't have a kid yet from the one He says I'm going to have a kid from." So to just to take that name required faith. But it tells us a great deal about Abraham and what God expected of Abraham and what God wanted to do with Abraham.

Let us begin here in the Scripture in Genesis 2. We are talking about a subject that is often good to see the first mention of a thing. But the idea of names and naming occurs immediately in the Garden of Eden. God shows first of all His example of naming and then he shows Adam being given the authority to name. Let us just take the first one.

Genesis 2:10-14 Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which encompasses the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which encompasses the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel [which is the Tigris]; it is the one which goes to the east of Assryia. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

This is the first mention of names and naming. Now, since they were the names of Eden's rivers, we can assume that God named them. This had to do with the place that He had chosen to put mankind to begin all humanity. And so He put them in the Garden and it was these rivers that ended up flowing out from God's place Eden or the Garden of Eden.

Now, He named them, these four rivers, descriptively. The Pishon means "full flowing." The Gihon means "bursting forth." Tigris or Hiddekel means "darting, swift." And Euphrates means "sweet." Now, as I explained so many years ago in my "Imagining the Garden of Eden" series, these can be understood, when you put certain verses together, as descriptions of the Holy Spirit. It is the water that comes out from God's presence. So He described right away how His Spirit flows from Him. It is full flowing, it bursts forth, it is darting and swift. We do not have to wait for His Spirit to start working. And it is sweet, it tastes good. It gives us the things that we need. And so we have here God naming things what they are and what they are to represent.

Down a little bit further in verse 18, we will see Adam naming things.

Genesis 2:18-20 And Lord God said, "It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper comparable to him." Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all the cattle, to the birds of the air and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

So almost immediately after we see the names that God gave to these rivers, God has Adam name the animals. Now the context implies that God had him do this so he could see in the parade of animals there that there was not a mate for him, there was nothing among animal-kind that was comparable to man. They were all lower forms of life. They did not have any intellect, they lived by instinct. And so there was not any creature that was like man. Man was at the top and all these other creatures had been given to him.

I mean, we do understand also that in chapter 1, God had given man dominion over all of these creatures, over the whole earth. And so the underlying lesson here that we see in God giving Adam authority to name the animals is that He was giving Adam, in this exercise, a lesson in leadership. He was doing what God did in naming the rivers. God had full authority over the earth. Now God was giving some of that authority to Adam as the head of humanity to name the animals.

What we get from this is that he was being shown how to lead, how to use his headship and authority that had been given to him. And so he names the animals. And if we would look down verse 23, he called the woman Isha in Hebrew, intending us to understand that she came out of man. And then later in chapter 3, he names her Eve, the mother of all living. So in this way, he not only shows his headship over creation, but in the marriage union. He is showing his headship there as well because he had named his wife Eve.

So we get from this a principle that naming usually flows from superior to inferior, someone who is in authority to someone who is under authority. And the reason for that, if the naming is done properly, the superior has given it greater thought, has greater perspective, and more wisdom to name the thing accurately and appropriately. This is especially true of God as our ultimate superior. He has the wisdom to name things what they are.

We have the opportunity, most of us in our lifetime, to name our children, and naming our children is important. It is not the ultimate in importance at all, but we should think very seriously about the names we give our children because our names tie us down. And the name can, I will not go so far as to say make or break a person, but it can give a child a good start, if you will, if it is a name that is honorable or that means something good. It gives a little bit of the parents aspirations for the child and that sort of thing.

Like my son is named John Wells Ritenbaugh IV. It had been my hope when we were naming John that he would look to my dad, who was the III, as his namesake and have the same qualities as him. Now, John and John are totally different people. Johnny is not like my dad in many ways, but that is the sort of things that we do or that we should do as Christians with our children. That we give them a good noble name, something that they can aspire to use and reach what that name means, to accomplish what that name means.

Let us move on forward to Exodus 20. We are just going to go straight through the Bible. We are not going to read every place where a name is mentioned because I think the word "name" in Hebrew is mentioned, I do not know, 1,500 times or something. That would be a very long sermon. In verse 7, obviously the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20:7 "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."

Now, this section of Scripture, particularly this verse, reveals that God's name is especially holy and inviolable. It is so great a name, so awesome a name, so sacred a name, that we have to be very careful with it, meticulous even. We have to treat it with the utmost respect and reverence. This commandment has far more to do with bearing His name properly than using swear words. In relation to which is more important, bearing His name is way up here and swear words are way down here. Now, we should not do either. But I am saying the more important thing is how we bear or carry the name of God. It deals with our witness that we show the world and we show each other of Him, that is, of God and of His way of life. That we are showing honor in every way, doing what God has told us to do. And everything we know about God, or maybe that is a little bit too hyperbolic, but a great deal of what we know about God is found in His names, because He has many names, many titles, many descriptions in God's Word that can act as names.

And so we have to make sure that we are learning of God through His names and then treating them with the proper respect because they are teaching us, in their meanings, what God is and what God expects.

Let us go on to Proverbs the 22nd chapter, which may be one of the most well known of all scriptures about names.

Proverbs 22:1 A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, loving favor rather than silver and gold.

This verse is often connected to reputation. That your name, your reputation is a very important thing. It is worth more than wealth. And that is right, that is a proper understanding of this scripture because a good reputation is priceless in this world and we should strive to have a good reputation and to uphold that reputation.

But have we ever considered the parallelism here? I am going to go into something that Clyde just a few minutes ago touched on. But I harp on parallelism a lot when I go to the psalms because it is very important. The parallels teach you a lot more than can be said or taken out of one word. And so the Hebrews did this parallel system of speaking and writing so they could add information and get the reader or the listener to make some connections.

So here we have a very classic parallel structure where each line is divided up into two. And there are two couplets that parallel one another. So in the one line, "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches," your two parts here are "good name" and "great riches." And then immediately afterward, there is the parallel, "loving favor" is one and "silver and gold" is the second. So a good name corresponds to loving favor, and great riches to silver and gold. That is interesting, especially the first one. A good name is equated with loving favor or at least connected to, maybe equated is a little too strong.

But the two ideas are connected somehow that we are desire a good name and loving favor. Both of them with whatever connection is between them are to be desired more than wealth. They are to be top priorities of what we wish to have.

What is loving favor in the Bible? Well, as Clyde mentioned, the more frequent word that we use is grace, loving favor. This word here that is translated, "loving favor," is also the word used in the phrase "to find grace in someone's eyes." Now, when commentators look at this, they almost always relegate this good name and favor to human interactions, that it is other humans that we want to find favor with that. If we have a good reputation and we have a good name, then other people will treat us well and give us favor.

But can we not elevate it to the divine plain here? I think we can. There is a correspondence there too between what happens among humans and what happens on God's plain, the way God looks at us. More important than wealth is to uphold God's name. That is the highest name of all; and have His loving favor. Or maybe just say the greatest thing in the world is to find grace in His eyes.

Let us go to Luke 10, verse 20. We are going to be reading 17 through 20. But the gist of Luke 10:20 is it parallels what we just saw there in Proverbs 22:1.

Luke 10:17-20 Then the seventy [He had sent out the seventy disciples] returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name." [Notice that immediately in this paragraph here, the name of Jesus is mentioned. So we get the idea that this is what we are actually talking about here, names.] And He said to them [Jesus' response to this, Woo! Demons are subject to us, that is, the disciples. Jesus says], "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. [like He just one-upped them big time there. Yeah, you have had a few demons go away, but I kicked Satan out of heaven. That is kind of not how He probably meant it, but He was saying, "Yeah, it's a great thing."] Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. [He is just loading them with spiritual power here over the demons and over dangerous animals. Verse 20 though, listen to how He finishes this.] Nevertheless do not rejoice in this [that you have superpowers now over the demons], that the [demons] are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven."

You see the parallel between Proverbs 22:1 and this verse here? The comparison or the contrast in this one is to power and to authority rather than wealth, which it was back in Proverbs 22:1. I mean, it is a great thing to command demons to come out of people and relieve them of that kind of distress. But Jesus says, "Not so fast, you're not getting the priorities right here, guys. It is far better for the Book of Life to contain our names than we have great power over demons." That is, it is so much better that God knows us and favors us and has accepted us in Christ, and is providing us spiritual power to build godly character in preparation for His Kingdom.

Yes, it is a great thing to be able to exercise demons. It is not something that has been given, seemingly, in this age of the church to any great degree. To them it was something great because, as we know from reading the gospels, there was a lot of demonic activity going on and it was providing a lot of distress to people and here they were able to overcome it in Jesus' name. That was the power, the power was in Jesus' name, really, and in His Spirit flowing through them to make this happen. But they felt it personally. They felt that it was a great gift. Jesus makes sure they understand that it was actually the spiritual power that God was giving them to change themselves, to have the character of God, to be part of God's people, and have God's favor. That was far more important than any of these, what would we call them, physical acts. I mean, if you go through the gifts of God's Spirit in Romans 12 or I Corinthians 12 or any of the places where those gifts are mentioned, the most important ones always have to do with changing, repenting, preaching, giving people encouragement and helping them to change into the image of Jesus Christ.

So, Jesus here is lightly reprimanding the disciples to change their focus. That the superpower that He had given them seemed great, but it was spiritual change within themselves that was far more important. And that was recognized by God by having their names written in the Book of Life, that their name had actually been elevated now to the heavenly plane. And it was far more important, and living up to their name and God's name which was named upon them, was far more important than this physical, spiritual, whatever power that they had been given.

Let us move on Philippians 2, verses 5-11 now, into the epistles of Paul where he expounds on Christ's name. I mentioned how powerful it was that these things were done in His name. But here we begin to get a glimpse of how powerful His name actually is. Now notice how this is framed. Our target verse here is verse 9.

Philippians 2:5-11 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider robbery to be equal with God. [Equality with God was not something that should be grasped and held on to firmly when something else was needed, when there was a another work that needed to be done.], but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. [Now here is our target scripture.] Therefore [the conclusion here] God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name [let us move on, because that has consequences], that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Like I said, verse 9 is central. Jesus Christ has been given the highest name of all.

From everything I have studied, that name is not Jesus or Christ, but He has been given a name. Now, I cannot tell you what it is, but it has more authority and power than any other name—in all creation for all time.

Now, in those verses before verse 9, we learned how Jesus earned this august and powerful name. It was through His humility, His willingness to forsake what He was, what He had, all His glory, and all the adoration that He had, second by second from all those angels in heaven, to become a man and to die. He was willing to give everything to do what His Father wanted Him to do. And so He did it and He finished His work. He went all the way to the bitter end, did everything right, fulfilled every prophecy, gave us the perfect example. And now He is highly exalted.

After verse 9, what we see is the consequences to everyone in creation for all time because of His humility that earned Him His name. Now this goes far beyond the idea of a personal name or reputation being more valuable than riches. Yes, it is. But Christ's name, whatever that name is, is so powerful, so authoritative, so holy that all other names are nothing in comparison. All other names, all other things, everything else we could ever want or desire is still beneath the great and awesome name that He has been given. In fact, Paul's intent here is to persuade us that this name is our highest aspiration and goal.

Now, how can I say this? Let us conclude in Revelation 3. We will read verses 12 and 13. This is in the letter to the Philadelphia church but applies to all of them because of what it says there in verse 13, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

Revelation 3:12-13 "He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God [the Father's name], and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down from heaven out from My God. And I will write on him My new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

That is amazing. Just to think that lowly worms of men and women could be glorified to the extent that they are included under the new name that Christ receives. All that power and glory. But it says it right here. Every person who is a part of God's elect, the bride of Christ in the first resurrection, will receive Christ's new name. He will share with each member of His bride His sterling character, which is found in His name, His spotless reputation, and almighty power by sharing His new name with them. This is a great, awesome honor that we do not deserve, but He gives it to us because He loves us and has accepted us.

Now, we should realize that His name has already been placed on us. Not this new name necessarily, but His name, the one we know Him by has already been placed on us. Are we not in Christ? Were we not baptized into His name? Were we not washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of Jesus Christ, as Paul says in I Corinthians 6:11? Are we not as followers of Christ identified by His name? Indeed, we are. And that name, as the wise woman in the television drama said, ties us down.

It is a great thing to have, but it also comes with great responsibility. The name of Christ identifies us with Him, with His character, with His church, and with His Kingdom, and all the things that we know of Him. And that can be a heavy burden. But with the heavy burden comes God's favor, the loving favor that He gives us, His grace and His Spirit so that we can begin in just small incremental ways to reflect that name to those we come in contact with. That name constrains us to bear that name with honor and loyalty and loving obedience, as the third commandment demands.

With that awesome name upon us we are securely bound by covenant and by honor to uphold it and emulate everything it represents. It is very serious, but it is very awesome too. It is a tremendously tall order to think of what God expects of us by bearing that name. But it is, too, an extremely high honor that separates us from the rest of humanity, why the elect are given so much as a reward. Because we have to bear this name amidst the filth of this world and the demonic presence of Satan and his demons as they try to make life on earth living hell for us.

So we need this name because we need the strength that we can gain from this name to tie us ever more closely to what that name represents: our very God. So yes, indeed, your name ties you down, but possessing the name of Christ lifts you up.

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