Biblical Misunderstandings 

Cessationism

Did God Forsake Jesus on the Cross?

Fully Man, Fully God? 

In Jesus' Name (this page)

Paul's 'Thorn in the Flesh'

The Prisoner of the Lord?

See also Biblical Myths

What Name is That?

The man we know as Jesus was a Jewish child, born to (raised by) Jewish parents who lived in Israel. Well, His mother was Jewish, while His Father was God, which gave Him naming rights.

And so the angel Gabriel told Mary (Miriam) that the boy should be called Jesus. (Luke 1:31) Or did he?

Jesus is not a Jewish name, it's an English word derived from the Greek word 'Iesous', but the Son of God wasn't Greek, either. It is generally regarded that His name would have been Yeshua, which is Hebrew meaning 'Yahweh saves' or perhaps 'He saves', and the English name Joshua is closely related.

What's in a name?

If we say that "John has a good name" or "Peter doesn't have a good name", what are we talking about? 

Does that mean that anyone called 'John' is blessed with a name that is intrinsically better than the name 'Peter'?

No. That is a figure of speech used all over the world to mean that a particular person we know called 'John' has a good reputation, while the person we know called 'Peter' does not have a good reputation. We find this figure of speech used in Scripture, also.

In Genesis 11:4, the people involved in planning the tower of Babel said,

  4 ... “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (ESV) Emphasis added.

In Genesis 12:2 God spoke to Abraham and, among other things said:

"And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." 

These are figures of speech which represent the idea of raising someone's reputation.

A 'name' is much more than just the word we use to refer to God

Right from the beginning the word 'name' is used to cover much more than just the word we use to identify a person. The concept of 'name', especially as it refers to 'God', includes a description of what That person does or has done, covering Their acts as well as Their role, and how They relate to other people. 

The word 'name' when applied to God or by God about Themselves is generally not to be taken or understood literally.

In other words, the word 'name' when applied by God to Themselves is used as a figure of speech, rather than describing the word or words to be used to address Them.

When Moses spoke to Pharaoh in God's name (see, for example, Exodus 9:13-19) God would first tell him what to say. Here is the crux of these verses, verse 16.

"But for this very purpose have I let you live, that I might show you My power, and that My name may be declared throughout all the earth." (AMP) Which name was that? 'My reputation' is what God is actually talking about.

There is another very interesting use of the word 'name' in Exodus 23:20ff. God is instructing Moses:

"Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you on the way... v20

"Give heed to Him, listen to His voice...for My name is in Him." v21

God was, of course, talking about the one who is called elsewhere the 'Angel of the Lord', who is none other than the Son of God in the New Testament. In this case, "for My name is in Him" is a figure of speech declaring that the Angel of the Lord works as one with the Father, doing whatever the Father would do in this situation.

At the end of Numbers 6 is the well-known blessing which the Lord asked Moses to pass on to Aaron and his sons:

"The Lord bless you and keep you; v24

"The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. v25

"The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace." v26

"And they shall put My name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them." v27

How would Aaron and his sons put the Lord's name upon the Israelites?

By speaking the things in verses 24-26, and by teaching the Israelites that these things really were the face, the heart and the nature of God the Lord. 

The Levites were instructed to "minister in the name of the Lord"

"For the Lord has chosen him (the Levite) out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord..." 

"And if a Levite comes from any of your towns...to the place the Lord will choose;

"Then he may minister in the name of the Lord his God like all his brethren..." Deuteronomy 18:5-7 (AMP - Bold text added for emphasis.)

What does it mean to "minister in the name of the Lord?"

It means to follow all of the instructions that God had given through Moses for all the Levitical duties. These included acting as priests, providing music, helping with sacrifices and serving in other ways in the tabernacle and later, the temple worship. Whatever they did was to have the same appearance and effect as if it was God Themselves performing the ministry.

When God 'proclaimed His name' before Moses

If there is any doubt about what 'the name' of any part of the Godhead refers to we need look no further than God's near encounter with Moses on Mt Sinai.

But before we cover that here is another intriguing usage of the word 'name'.

In Exodus 33:16 Moses asks God for a sign that the Israelites have found favour in His sight, and that He will go with them.

"And the Lord said to Moses, I will do this thing also that you have asked, for you have found favor in My sight, and I know you by name." 

What? Wouldn't God know everyone's name? 

There's a difference here. God doesn't just know Moses by sight, from seeing him at a distance, but because Moses has a personal relationship with God through interacting with Him, God 'knows him by name'. Here is yet another special figure of speech, another usage of the word 'name'.

Moses then takes advantage of this special connection:

"And Moses said, I beseech You, show me Your glory.

"And God said, I will make all My goodness pass before you, And I will proclaim My name, The LORD (Yahweh), before you; for I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy."

Here God has actually named the name that He will proclaim, Yahweh, so there must be more to proclaiming His name than just saying it.

While I have used the Amplified Bible translation so far, I want to now move to a more literal translation, as found in the ISA3. This is Exodus 34:5-7a.

"Then Yahweh descended in a cloud, and stationed Himself with him there, and proclaimed the name of Yahweh.

"Now Yahweh passed by before his face and proclaimed: Yahweh, Yahweh, El, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abundant with kindness and truth.

"preserving kindness to thousands, bearing with depravity, transgression and sin..."

(Note that in verse 7a above the words "bearing with" are generally recorded as "forgiving" in other translations.)

Well! The 'name' that God wants proclaimed is not so much 'Yahweh' but the fact that 'Yahweh' means that God is compassionate and gracious (freely giving to those who haven't earned it), slow to anger and overflowing with kindness and truth, continuing that kindness to multitudes while forgiving their evil wickedness, law-breaking and wrong-doing. 

That's some special 'name' - that is, in fact, a description of what God is like, and a description of how God wants to be known. Unfortunately, that is not how many see God. Even some Christians have a habit of describing God as a God of anger, judgment and punishment.

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God Gets Blamed for the Adversary's Work

In The Equality of Men and Women (see Parts 10 to 15 here) we show how the negative results of Adam and Eve's mistakes in the Garden were not a punishment from God, but the natural consequences that followed on because they had assigned their allegiance to the enemy.

It's easy to get the idea that God is a vengeful, wrathful God from reading the Old Testament. Some of the reason for this is that, apart from the appearance of the 'serpent' in Genesis 3, there is no mention of the adversary until 1 Chronicles 21:1 (Hebrew = satan in this instance, as a name) and Job 1:6 (Hebrew = hassatan in this instance, as a description governed by the use of the definite article, where Hebrew 'ha' = the English word 'the'.).

In 1 Chronicles 21:1 we read:

"Satan (an adversary) stood up against Israel, and stirred up David to number Israel." (AMP)

There is a matching passage in 2 Samuel 24:1 which covers the very same incident. However, having been recorded, at least orally at the time that the events occurred, perhaps 400 years before 1 Chronicles was written, it reads like this:

"Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He moved David against them saying, Go, number Israel and Judah."

There are a number of problems with this earlier version of the same event.

1. If God had asked David to take a census, he would be lawfully entitled to do so.

2. To lawfully complete the census David would have had to receive a half shekel tax for every male counted over the age of twenty. However, Moses completed two censuses of Israel at God's direction and seemingly without collecting the half shekel tax.

3.  God does not ask anyone to do something that is wrong, and certainly not something that has a serious penalty attached. (When God tested Abraham - Genesis 22 - there was no penalty attached, and the test was stopped before any harm was done.)

At some stage between approximately 900BC (2 Samuel) and 450BC (1 Chronicles 24) the religious leaders, the prophets or perhaps the scribes became aware that a malevolent entity known as 'the adversary' was responsible for evil, both as temptation and as testing. Isaiah and Ezekiel, written in the intervening period, contain passages which prophetically link the adversary (also called the devil in the New Testament) with an earthly ruler and a heavenly prince or archangel. For more details see Know Your Enemy here.

However, prior to these times everything that happened, both good and bad, was ascribed to God.

We know that God has no part in death. 

While the Old Testament regularly suggests or ascribes death as a punishment from God, the New Testament places responsibility for death in the hands of the enemy. Was there a shift in responsibility for death between God and the adversary somewhere in the past?

No, of course not.

Jesus said, “The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy, but I have come to bring life.” John 10:10.  

Paul put it this way: “The last enemy to be overcome is death.” 1 Corinthians 15:26. An enemy does not come from God. 

In Hebrews 2:14 we read this about Jesus:

"He, in a similar manner partook of the same [nature], that by death He might make of no effect him who has the power of death, that is, the devil." 

Since the knowledge of God (theology) was still developing at the end of the Old Testament era it is important to apply the understanding we have from the New to help us understand and correctly apply the Old.

Genesis 3 does not say that. 

When God said, "The ground is under a curse because of you...thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you" there was no 8th day of Creation, nor was God saying, "I have cursed the ground because of you." 

Thorns and thistles had always been there, and while Adam and Eve were under control, the things they were given authority over were also under control.

Now that they had transferred their allegiance to the enemy and were out of God's control, the things they had been given authority over would also be 'out of control'. In the West, think of a school classroom - if the teacher has good control the students will be 'under control'. If the teacher does not know how to exercise control, the students will be 'out of control'.

In the East (Africa) corruption is out of control. At most levels of society, from church to government, you can be asked to pay extra to get something that should cost a lot less, or even be free. When people come under God's control and start following the words of Jesus and the wisdom of Proverbs, corruption will come under control.

The same principle applies to the other so-called curses shown in Genesis 3, which are actually consequences, not curses from God.

Yes, it really does say that. What's more, this verse and another similar one in Exodus are referred to three times in the New Testament; once in John's Gospel, as an editorial comment referring to something that Jesus said, and twice in Romans.

However, if we start with the pharaoh, he had already hardened his heart toward the Israelites long before God got Moses involved. See Exodus 1:9-10. He responded to temptation from the evil one to enslave the Israelites. Once we respond to temptation, our heart becomes hardened, not by God, but by the enemy. As people fall into bad actions, they tend to become more and more oppressive towards others, and sometimes even towards themselves.. The enemy do NOT need God's help to make this happen.

In 2 Corinthians 3:15-16 Paul is talking about his fellow Jewish countrymen when he says:

"Yes, down to this [very] day whenever Moses is read a veil lies upon their minds." v15

In other words, they miss the truth. It's in there, but because of stubbornness and a desire to not change, as well as a feeling of superiority about the exceeding greatness of their existing but incomplete revelation of God, they miss the truth, partly because they think they have it all, anyway. This still applies today. It's possible to change, but they don't want to. It's their decision, not God's. The next verse shows that.

"But whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is stripped away." v16

God doesn't change our mind (repent) for us, we have to do it ourselves, and according to this, it's totally possible. But, as they used to say in the infomercials, "There's more!" 

Just a few verses further on Paul identifies the source of the blinding, and it's certainly not God.

"For the god of this world has blinded the unbeliever's minds, preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the Gospel..." 2 Corinthians 4:4.

Both the hardening and the blinding come from the enemy. The more we fight the truth, the more they are empowered to oppress us and hinder us from seeing it. When we go back to the Old Testament passages we have this same scenario: because theology had not yet developed, because there was no understanding of how the enemy worked, everything both good and evil is attached to God

It certainly seems to read that way, but we also know that God has nothing to do with death. So what happened?

Here is the first clue, in Exodus 11:4-5 "And Moses said, Thus says the Lord, About midnight I will go out into the land of Egypt, and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die."

He did not say, "God will kill them." In fact, by going to Exodus 12:23 we can see what really happened.

"For the Lord will pass through to slay the Egyptians..." Oops, that doesn't look too good. But Moses goes on with clarifying details:

"...and when He sees the blood upon the lintel and the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your house to slay you." So it wasn't God who did the slaying, after all. It was God who checked for the blood of the lamb at the entrance to the house before allowing the destroyer to enter if it was absent.

Who is the destroyer?

The same one that Jesus spoke about. 

The adversary (Hebrew = hassatan) and his hordes were not inactive from the temptation in the Garden until the temptation of David to take an illegal census. They had tempted Cain to kill Abel, and the men of Sodom and Gomorrah to perform all sorts of wickedness including violent homosexuality, and Abraham to sell his wife for sex, and even Moses when he killed the Egyptian. But because the theology of God had not yet been developed in the first half of the Old Testament we are left to apply the wisdom that Jesus presented, so that we can work out what was happening back there.

David has killed Goliath and the people are singing his praises, honouring him as ten times more effective than the king. The king becomes jealous and decides to kill David. Where does jealousy come from?

I don't think I have ever heard any preacher, anywhere, who was talking about a destructive emotion like anger, hatred or jealousy, who didn't say, "Well, God created the emotion - we just have to learn to handle (or use) it appropriately." 

Well, God didn't, actually. 

God created self control, love and honour, and the enemy perverted them into the negative emotions listed above that drive the destructive reactions of so many people. The other negative emotions described in Galatians 5:19-21 as "works of the flesh", in Ephesians 4:30-32 as ones that "grieve the Holy Spirit of God", and in Colossians 3:5-10 as having come from "the old nature," all follow similar patterns. 

You can read more about anger and jealousy and hatred and their origins, dismantling and removal in Dealing with Problems here. 

This is 1 Samuel 18:10.

"Next day an evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul and he raved in his house..."

Where did the evil spirit come from? Not from God, God has angels. It's the devil who has control of the evil spirits, as Jesus pointed out when the religious leaders of His day accused Him of using the power of the adversary to cast out the evil spirits from the people afflicted by the enemy.

When we succumb to the subtle temptation to react negatively to a situation we open ourselves up to be oppressed by the enemy, as happened to king Saul, who then cast his javelin at the youth whom he saw as his rival. An act of God? Not at all, totally an act of the enemy. It was especially strong in Saul because he had all three - jealousy, anger and hatred - operating in him at the same time.

Note B: Before the enemy can afflict someone with an evil spirit, or a disaster or accident, even sickness and pain, they must get permission from God. God sets limits on what can be done, but not necessarily on the means or methods used. See Job 1:12, 2;6; Luke 22:31-32; 1 Corinthians 10:13. Before the enemy can apply for permission to apply a penalty we must have done something wrong. Most of us achieve that status quite readily!

For further information see Job - Why Things Go Wrong here.

Below you will see how we can apply the imagery from other examples in Scripture to help explain what is happening in 1 Kings 22:19-23. If we take isolated stories without cross-referencing them then it's easy to get wrong ideas.

Ahab, king of Israel (the northern tribes in the area later known as Samaria) invited Jehoshaphat, king of Judah (the southern area centered around Jerusalem) to go into battle with him to take Ramoth Gilead from the king of Syria.  

Jehoshaphat wisely asked Ahab to first inquire of the Lord from his prophets. Ahab assembled 400 of them who all said the same thing, "Go up; for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king". v6

Jehoshaphat wasn't so sure, and asked for another opinion. Ahab reluctantly called Micaiah, whom he hated because "he never prophesies good for me, but evil." v8

Micaiah initially agreed with the 400 false prophets in a display of satire, but Ahab, knowing that Micaiah always had a contrary opinion, insisted that he tell the truth. 

"And Micaiah said, Hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting upon His throne, and all the host of Heaven standing by Him on his right hand, and on His left." v19

There is the first clue, "all the host of heaven, standing by Him on His right hand and on His left."

According to Zechariah 3, which contains a picture of the court of God in Heaven, God the Father is in the centre facing us, with Jesus (there He is called the Angel of the Lord) acting as the defence attorney in front of the accused, but also facing us. The defendant is in front of Them facing Them, while the adversary, as the accuser or prosecutor, is at the defendant's right hand, facing God and the Angel of the Lord.

<insert drawing>

That then places the accuser (Revelations 12:10) at God's left hand. The rest of the host of Heaven are divided into "those on His right hand" and those "on His left." 

This is not a neutral crowd. 

From the rest of Scripture we know that Jesus (the Angel of the Lord in this case) is also at His right hand, as are God's angels. When Jesus was explaining Judgment Day (Matthew 25:33) He said that the sheep, those who followed Him, would be sent to His right, while the goats, those who chose not to follow Him, would be sent to the left. That's also where the adversary is positioned, and so the "host of Heaven" on God's left will be the adversary and his evil spirits. (Note that at this point in Zechariah 3 Judgment Day is not in progress: the point being made is that God's host is on His right, while the adversary's host is on God's left.)

Let's go back to Micaiah in 1 Kings 22:

"And the Lord said, Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?" v20a

The key word here for understanding this verse is the word 'entice', which means to draw someone into a place where they can be easily misled. It is very similar to and even interchangeable with the word 'tempt'. James 1:13 is very clear:

"Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted from God; for God is incapable of being tempted by evil, and He Himself tempts no one." 

Is this just something new under the New Covenant? Not at all. Even a prophet as late as Malachi had to bring a message from God to remind the people:

"For I am the Lord; I do not change. That is why you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed." Malachi 3:6

And so the same Father that Jesus revealed as God is the same Father who was always drawing mankind to Him, even in their apostasy. God did not need to draw Ahab into a place where he could be killed, because there was another there that day in Heaven who is responsible for death, the one Jesus called 'the thief', also known as the accuser and the adversary, the same one who tried to entice Jesus to worship him just after Jesus was baptised and filled with Holy Spirit.

Zechariah 3 shows how the court of Heaven plays out. Now, in 1 Kings 22 God was not asking for a means to kill Ahab - the adversary was.

God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23,;18:32; 33:11) but the enemy do...

God is not willing that any should perish but that all should repent (change their mind) . He is extraordinarily patient toward us (2 Peter 3:9), but the enemy are anxious to kill us. 

When we make mistakes, and Ahab made plenty of mistakes, the adversary goes before God (to get permission to attack us, which God will generally eventually do while setting limits on what they can do. That is shown in Job 1:6, 1:12; and 2:1, 2:6; 1 Corinthians 10:13 and Revelation 12:10.

The books of 1 and 2 Kings cover events from about the late10th century BC to the early 6th century BC, somewhat before the appearance of 'the adversary' in 2 Chronicles. Because of this I am quite certain that a part of what Micaiah saw is either missed out or has been left out.

We know from the workings of the adversary (also known as the accuser) that he would have first approached God and said something like this: "It's time that you release Ahab to us - he has done so many things against the law. (Remember that the enemy look for our offences so that they can demand our blood/death from God.) We want him to fall at Ramoth-gilead."

This is where Micaiah's story continues.

"And the Lord said, Who (meaning, How will you...) will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? One said this way, another said that way." v20

"Then there came forth the spirit and stood before the Lord and said, I will entice him." v21

This one is called a spirit because it came from the left hand of God, where the enemy are gathered. On the right hand the 'spirits' of God are known as angels.

"The Lord said to him, By what means? And he said, I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. [The Lord] said, You shall entice him, and succeed also; go forth and do it." v22

God has given approval for this to take place, but God did not send the lying spirit - it came from the enemy's hordes. According to Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man that He should lie..." and Titus 1:2 says, "And God...never lies," so we can safely assume that a lying spirit sent to deceive someone, although approved by God since a penalty is required, does not come from God. 

John the Baptist sums it up like this: "Whoever receives His testimony has set his approval to this: that God cannot lie." John 3:33

Who is the liar? Who could send a lying spirit into the mouths of all the prophets?

I am not trying to rewrite history, to set the record straight on my own - Jesus is. Look at what He says in John 8:44.

"...the devil...was a murderer from the beginning" (He is referring to Cain) "and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a falsehood he speaks what is natural to him; for he is a liar and the father of lies."

And so the final words of Micaiah on this vision have to be seen in this light - since the enemy are responsible for deception and lying and death, verse 23 should be understood according to how we understand God, like this:

"So the Lord the adversary has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets." v23a

Micaiah finishes verse 23 like this:

"...and the Lord has spoken evil concerning you."

That looks bad until we realise that it is a figure of speech to describe the way God has finally permitted the enemy to take out Ahab. Jesus spends a lot of time defending us in the court of Heaven before the enemy's accusations but eventually a penalty has to be applied if we don't change our ways. 

To help understand more how this system works, see Job's Five Mistakes here. These mistakes empowered the enemy to ask for retribution against Job, which was subsequently granted by God. He then made more mistakes, which is why the enemy was given another chance to attack him.

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The End, Even of the Idea, of Punishment from God

After talking about the way God has made us all to be right with Him through the redemption bought with Jesus' blood, in Romans 3:25 Paul adds this juicy detail:

"This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins without punishment." (AMP)

Many people don't realise this, or even see it this way, but Isaiah 53:4 puts it quite clearly:

"Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we considered Him stricken, smitten and afflicted by God." (AMP)

The pain and the suffering that Jesus went through was not sent by God. It was all the work of the enemy who thought that they could in that way dispose of the Lamb of God and abort God's plan established from the foundation of the world. (See Revelation 13:8.) However, that death and resurrection released so much power in us who believe that, had the enemy realised this would happen, "they would never have crucified the Lord of glory." (AMP) 1 Corinthians 2:8.

Isaiah 53:5 has the ultimate, definitive say on this matter.

"But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement (punishment) for us was upon Him,

And by His stripes we are healed." (AMP)

God has no punishment for wrong-doers or for wrong-doing. Jesus took the penalty for us, not only for us, but for all mankind, from the beginning of time until the end. 

God has no penalty for mankind in this lifetime, but on Judgment Day there is a reward and penalty system, based on what every person has done in their lifetime. You can read about God's Reward System here.

To be continued...

Biblical Misunderstandings 

Cessationism

Did God Forsake Jesus on the Cross?

Fully Man, Fully God? 

In Jesus' Name (this page)

Paul's 'Thorn in the Flesh'

The Prisoner of the Lord?

See also Biblical Myths