Luke 21:8

Christian, Be Not Deceived!

CHAPTER THREE 

JESUS — JEHOVAH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

The New Testament clearly teaches that Jesus revealed in the New Testament, is Jehovah Who is revealed in the Old Testament, as the Deliverer of His people. As we have already shown, "God Almighty", "Jehovah", and the "I AM" mentioned in the Old Testament refer to the same Being–compare Gen. 17:1; 35:11; 48:3 with Ex. 6:2, margin; 3:6, 13-15. The Lord's servant definitely declares that Jesus claimed to be the “I AM”. see DA. 469, 470. The Lord's servant also wrote concerning the manifestations of the Divine Presence: "In all these revelations of the divine presence, the glory of God was manifested through Christ.... All the communion between heaven and the fallen race has been through Christ.... Christ was not only the Leader of the Hebrews in the wilderness–the Angel in whom was the name of Jehovah, and who, veiled in the cloudy pillar, went before the host–but it was He Who gave the law to Israel. Amid the awful glory of Sinai, Christ declared in the hearing of all the people the ten precepts of His Father's law. It was He Who gave to Moses the law engraved upon the tables of stone." (PP. 366). We are directed to the Appendix for a further explanatory note. It reads thus: "That the One Who spoke the law, that called Moses into the mount and talked with him, was our Lord Jesus Christ, is evident from the following considerations: Christ is the One through Whom Gods at all times revealed Himself to man. 'But there is but One God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things, and we by Him' (1 Cor. 8:6). `This is he (Moses) that was in the church in the wilderness, with the Angel which spake to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; who received the lively oracles to give unto us' (Acts 7:38). This Angel was the Angel of God's presence (Isa. 63:9), the Angel in Whom was the name of the great Jehovah (Ex. 23:20-23). The expression can refer to no other than the Son of God." 

It will be observed that Ex. 6:2 reads: "God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord" and the margin explains that "the Lord" means "Jehovah". It would be helpful in our reading of the Authorized Version if we always remembered that while Jehovah is occasionally given as the translation of the original Hebrew, the translators have presented it almost without exception as LORD. In an article in "The Ministry", December, 1951, 

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Julia Neuffer, Research Assistant to the Book Editor, Review and Herald, says: "Thus to get the actual force of the original we may read Jehovah whenever we see LORD, in the Authorized Version or the British Revised Version. Jehovah, indeed, is what we find printed in the American Standard Version (the Standard American Edition of the Revised Version of the Bible). To us the Lord' sounds adequate to express the meaning `God', since we are steeped in the concept of only one God as Lord of all. But in the Old Testament setting, with 'gods many and lords many' contesting the supremacy of the one God of the Hebrews, the personal name of the true God is often much stronger than 'the Lord'. The Israelites on Mount Carmel, witnessing the defeat of Baal (whose name also means Lord) before Elijah's blazing altar, were no doubt at all as to which lord they meant when they shouted, `The Lord, He is the God!' They were saying, `Jehovah, He is God!' Not Baal, but  Jehovah. 

God thus personally identified Himself in the preface to the Ten Commandments: 'I am Jehovah thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt.' 

"'I Jehovah thy God,' is what He really says in the second commandment. 

" `Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain. 

. . . The seventh day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God ... for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth.' 

"'I am Jehovah: that is My name,' He declares to Isaiah (Isa. 42:8)." 

It was Jehovah Who proclaimed the Ten Commandments from the rugged heights of Mt. Sinai amid awful grandeur, and, as we have already quoted from the pen of the Lord's servant: "Amid the awful glory of Sinai, Christ declared ... the ten precepts" (PP. 366). 

It was Jehovah Who created the heavens and the earth in six days and set aside the seventh day of the week as the memorial of His almighty power. The New Testament clearly teaches that Christ is the Creator (John 1:1-4; Col. 1:16, 17; Heb. 1:1-3; etc.). Thus Jesus is presented in the New Testament as the Jehovah of the Old Testament. In the book of Revelation wherein this mighty truth is further revealed the Sabbath is said to be "the Lord's Day" (Rev. 1:10). Why not give it the name of "the Sabbath"? Because John's burden was not to point primarily to the Sabbath but to the Deity of the Lord. While Sabbath keeping is revealed in the Apocalypse as the sign of loyalty to the government of Heaven, a higher purpose even than that is revealed in the Revelation–to exalt Jesus as "the Almighty" Who made the heavens and the earth in six days and rested the Sabbath day and 

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made that day His Sabbath day. The emphasis is upon the fact that Jesus is the Lord Who made that day; it is "the Lord's Day". 

Wherever prophet or apostle sought to show the prerogative of the true God he appealed to the people to worship the Creator. (Jer. 10:10-12; Acts 14:15; Rev. 14:6, 7. 1 John 5:20 . And in this last text Jesus is expressly mentioned as the true God: "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” 

Many ways of proving that Jesus is the Jehovah of the Old Testament may be found by comparison of verses from the Old and the New Testaments. For instance, in Jer. 23:5, 6 the Lord presents a prophecy concerning the coming of the Saviour Who would be born of the lineage of David, and says: "This is His name whereby He shall be called THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." As shown in the margin, the Hebrew reads: "Jehovah-tsidkenu". The New Testament teaches that Jesus is our righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21). Therefore Jesus is Jehovah. We will present but one more example of how the New Testament applies in relation to Jesus, statements made in the Old Testament concerning Jehovah. Isaiah prophesied concerning the coming Messiah, saying: "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God." Isaiah 40:3. This was the passage to which John the Baptist pointed in connection with his work–he was preparing "the way of the Lord", or Jehovah, and making "straight in the desert a highway for our God". The angel Gabriel in bringing to the father of John the Baptist the news that he should have a son, outlined the work that that son would do. He said: "And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.  And he shall go before Him ['the Lord their God’] ... to make ready a people prepared for the Lord" (Luke 1:16, 17). Thus it can be readily discerned that the New Testament teaching is that Jesus is Jehovah. 

Writing with reference to the meaning of the name Jehovah, James Sprunt says: "This title occurs about 7,000 times, but it is generally rendered `the Lord', and only occasionally 'Jehovah'. The signification is, He that always was, that always is, and that ever is to come. In Revelation 1:8 it is thus translated: 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,' saith  Jehovah, 'which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.' This title speaks of Him Who is `the same yesterday' (past), 'to day' (present), `and forever' (future). Heb. 13:8. 'Who created' 

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(past) `all things' (Col. 1:16); Who `upholds' (present) 'all things' (Heb. 1:3); and 'for Whom' (future) 'all things were created' (Col. 1:16). It speaks of Him Who in the past 'appeared to put away sin', and now `appears in the presence of God for us', and will yet 'appear a second time apart from sin unto salvation'" (Heb. 9:24-28). 

"LORD, printed in our Bibles with capitals, is the translation of Jehovah; and Lord, in small letters, is the translation of the word Adon, which means Lord, Master, Possessor, or Proprietor. This distinction is important. (See Ps. 90:1.). 

" `Jehovah' expresses the covenant relationship of God with His people. See Exodus 6:2-8, where God speaks unto Moses, saying, 'I am Jehovah', 'I have established My covenant', 'I have remembered My covenant', 'I will bring you out', 'I will rid you of bondage', I will redeem you', 'I will take you to Me', 'I will be to you a God', 'I will bring you in', 'I will give you the land for a heritage', 'I am Jehovah'. As one has said, 'It was all that He would do, as founded upon what He was'. 

"The question has sometimes been asked, `How can Exodus 6:3 be true, when we read of Abram in Gen. 15 addressing the Lord as 'Lord God' (Adohnay Jehovah)? To this we can only reply, that God's name in relationship to the patriarchs was El Shaddai (God Almighty), just as now His name is 'Father'. Jehovah was not the special name of God to Abram as it was to Israel in Ex. 6:3, whereas God Almighty was. Bishop Wordsworth thus writes on this subject: `The name Jehovah is a word of higher import (than Elohim); it is derived from the old verb havah; to be, and signifies self-existence. Its proper meaning seems to be, “He Is”. (See Gesenius, p. 337) It was rarely uttered by the Jews on account of their reverence and awe for the Divine Being, the Everlasting ... but in its stead, they uttered the word Adonai’. 

"The  name, so precious to the children of God–JESUS-means 'Jehovah the Saviour'. It is the Greek form of Joshua, which itself is a contraction of Jehoshua, that is, 'the help of Jehovah', or 'the salvation of Jehovah', or `Jehovah the Saviour'. This name was given by divine command (see Matt. 1:21), and it is His only name, all other names being titles." —​ Jehovah Titles, pp. 11-13.  

The Lord's servant has written: "But while God's Word speaks of the humanity of Christ when upon this earth, it also speaks decidedly regarding His pre-existence. The Word existed as a divine Being, even as the eternal Son of God, in union and oneness with His Father. From everlasting He was the Mediator of the covenant, the One in Whom all nations of the earth, both Jews and Gentiles, if they accepted Him, were to be blessed. 'The 

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Word was with God, and the Word was God.' Before men and angels were created, the Word was with God, and was God. 

"The world was made by Him, `and without Him was not anything made that was made'. If Christ made all things, He existed before all things. The words spoken in regard to this are so decisive that no one need be left in doubt. Christ was God essentially, and in the highest sense. He was with God from all eternity, God over all, blessed forevermore.... 

“There are light and glory in the truth that Christ was one with the Father before the foundation of the world was laid. This is the light shining in a dark place, making it resplendent with divine, original glory. This truth, infinitely mysterious in itself, explains other mysterious an otherwise unexplainable truths, while it is enshrined in light, unapproachable and incomprehensible.” —Review and Herald, April 5, 1906.