“Lost my name in Baal”

So declared the LORD once unto our fathers. Are we as guilty today? Have we taken upon us “God” the way the nations around us speak of him? “God” has become just the general designation of a deity, different in each person’s own imagination. They may mean the God of Israel, the one true God, but their imaginations have supplied the characteristics to God. We did that before ourselves. After all, Baal only means “lord.” But our fathers forgot who the real Lord was, the attributes and characteristics of the real God. We began to forget his mighty works. We began to confuse him with the Canaanite idol of Baal. In our foolishness we thought they all referred to the same being.

But they did not! 

In like manner “God” as a “name” has developed until today. But, in reality, “God” is merely the Germanic for “deity”— Gott. Yet what is more disturbing is that “God,” though that name is now a concept used by many peoples, has become merely the mighty deity subject to each person or culture’s fancies. He is often, if not always, reciprocal. Any religion based on “God” often has reciprocality as its cornerstone— I do this for “God;” he will do this for me. This was the mentality of all ancient idol worship: appease the gods, cut deals with them, secure their favour. Although this is becoming the dominant approach in outlook toward “God” amongst the nations again,  is it becoming dominant now again amongst the Jews? The Scriptures have certainly been forgotten, or we have created from them a “God” of our own imagination. Even the Yiddish proverb/maxim has been lost: “God does not lie, he does not bargain.”

What is most alarming is how this has all happened before; not just the losing of the true God’s identify in Baal but in how mankind forgot God to begin with. People today are often astounded at how idolatry could have developed in the first place. How could Noah’s descendants forget the all-powerful-God who brought the flood upon the earth and spared only Noah and his family? Was this not passed on to each generation? Stories of the flood were passed on, why not the one who brought it? How was it that a single “God” was left out of it?

Here is one disturbing example from the Indo-European heritage. Scholars are fairly certain that this language group, one of the most dominant in the earth, has its origins around eastern Turkey or northeast of the Black Sea— to be more to the point, a place where Mt. Ararat is the epicenter. The people speaking the mother tongue, or the “proto” Indo-European language, spread all over— into Europe, parts of Asia and India. Over all these areas similar language roots and words can be found amongst the many different peoples.

Sanskrit, for example, is one of the earliest branches of an Indo-European language to be written down. It preserves the concept to the great God of Heaven, or sky god. He is called Dyaus Pita, that is, “Father Dyaus” or “Father bright,” bright referring to heaven— thus father of heaven. Every Indo-European language preserves a similar form of this word, applying it to the great father god or father of the gods. Some of the Germanic peoples pronounced it Teus, some Tiv or Div; the Greeks pronounced it Tseus and eventually Zeus. The Latins said Deus Pater (or Diespiter) “Father God” and also called him Jove Pater— to be eventually pronounced as “Jupiter.” Eventually Deus Pater would be dropped and deus simply became “God” in Latin, whereas in Greek Zeus became an actually entity— the “father of the gods.” Theon would mean “god” in Greek.

“Father God” would suffer many changes in the nations. In India Dyaus would eventually become  just a limited god of the sky, storms, tempests and thunderbolts/lightning. So would Teus have to take on lesser and more specific characteristics when the Germans preferred the concept of Wodin. Div would be obscured as the origin of the word “divine,” Jupiter and Zeus would be given many attributes and be the subject of much carnal storytelling. The great God of Heaven who was once the source of their inspirations was lost. The real God was lost in Dyaus Pita, Zeus, Deus Pater, Div, Teus, and Jove Pater  because people applied their own imaginations to the concept and title of the “father God.” At one point  man did confess the great God of Heaven. But they lost who he was by making him only “God.” Each peoples gave him his character until he was unrecognizable or until he no longer was; he was but a mere idol, warped and carnal, as in the case of Zeus.

The ancients were scholarly people. They kept records and the more erudite knew the origins of “gods” and how one foreign people’s god was the same as theirs though known by a different name. All knew Jupiter, Zeus, Ammon, etc, were the same god, just different names. They knew this because each was preserved as the “father of the gods” or the king of the gods, the high and mighty. They were not different names for the true God of Israel; they were the warped conceit of man and the object of their fears and hopes, but they did preserve the last kernel of knowledge of “Father Bright.” Using the Indo-European language root it is easier to see how, for the “father of the gods” anyway, an ancient origin of one great god was corrupted because the Indo-European languages can be traced back far and wide.

This knowledge was not lost on Paul. In Romans 1 he described it clearly:

                     For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
 

That’s how Noah’s descendants lost the idea of one God, the true God. By Abram’s generation how many truly understood? Now we understand why God called out our father Abraham, declaring to him “in thee shall all nations be blessed.” And thus the long process of God revealing himself to mankind began, revealing himself so that he would not be forgotten. To Moses he declared:

   And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM [LXX BEING]: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt: And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.
 

And now we know why his hand has been so severe upon us, why we were smitten and destroyed from the land more than once. The world didn’t know and kept losing God in “Dyaus” or “Baal” or whatever fancy they had. When we, who were to declare God’s identity to the world, also lost it in like manner punishment had to come. A great event was to come, and Israel had to remain intact to prepare for it.

What is this event? The prophets, starting with Moses, all declared that the Redeemer would come for all mankind. There are many articles on this website citing the scriptures referring to this, so they won’t be quoted yet again here. But it was made clear that God would walk among us and speak plain unto us. We were told when it would happen, and that the “Lord whom ye seek will come to his temple.” God will not be forgotten because of this act: that he came, that Jesus called Christos by the Gentiles, that Saviour the Messiah as we say, came unto us and revealed unto us the perfect nature of God that we might not again lose his name in Baal or today lose his name in “God.”

The NAME was never to be used in vain. For one reason to commonly use it would be to do what was done by Noah’s descendants with “Dyaus”— to make him into many gods and idols. Is there some sanctity in the name that protects us? No. You may hear people go on and on about how they know the actual pronunciation of the NAME (Tetragrammaton). God is not so small that he is wooed by a mere correct pronunciation. And indeed that pronunciation is only in Hebrew, with which he had to communicate with Moses. It is the meaning of the name that is important: BEING, constant state of self existence and self generation. If we corrupt the doings of God we have lost his name even more than mispronouncing it.

Consider what a pit must have been in Paul’s stomach when he entered Rome. There the greatest temple stood on the Capitoline Hill, the temple of Jupiter or Jove Pater, the great father of the gods. Jove is a hard word to trace. It is the older form of the name for the great god Diespiter or Dyaus Pita, used only by the Latins. Where did they get it? Wherever, in Latin J is pronounce Y and V is always pronounced W. Thus the pronunciation was almost if not identical to the Tetragrammaton: YOWEH.   “Father Yoweh.” Can you imagine Paul being shown the great temple and seeing the colossal statute of Yoweh Pater inside; a Jew actually hearing the NAME commonly pronounced and being shown an image of a bearded stately old man as representative of Yoweh? No wonder he began Romans with:  Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man.

The form alone was not in view; it was the attributes and human nature applied to Jupiter that made him into the likeness of corruptible man. We must be careful not to do this again with “God.” To separate God from Jesus is to start down that road again and create him in our own image. You can recite his name like the Romans and apply it to an idol, or you can do like the rabbis and form him only through nitpicking strictures. Both lost who God is because they lost his doings. He is not found in what you do or in what you are commanded. God is found in what he does. He made his eternal NAME clear at Horeb, and there he told Moses that he would raise up a prophet from amongst the children of Israel. Through him and no one else he would speak plainly— and upon those who did not hearken he would take vengeance.

There it is. That is the WHY in all creation. The purpose of it all. That man might know God, all men. It is in his works. To read Jesus is never to lose God again in Deus Piter or in gezeirah. Those are your only alternatives. Eventually, it must be one or the other: to create God in your own image on a sketchy memory of him and debase him into an idol or create him as a figure head through which men ordain their own commandments. Only through Jesus do you see God in a way you cannot corrupt. This is the only personal view. All others are impersonal. That is why the rabbis do not fear God when they make laws in his name from only a word, or why men do not fear God when they see him only as stone to placate, and worst of all people don’t fear “God” because he is their hardened conscience that allows them to do everything. He is too far and shadowy to such as these to be a real threat. Yet he planned it from the beginning-- to come and walk amongst us. That is why he is hated. He is seen clearly.

God prepared Moses for all our sakes, for in his book of Job and in his farewell song Moses knew God would walk amongst us. In Job he declared he would see God in his flesh, that as a flesh and blood man in the resurrection he would see God with his own eyes. Yet we know that God cannot be seen as he is.  “I fill heaven and earth,” he declared to Jeremiah. Thus Moses knew God would take unto himself the appearance as unto one of us. At Horeb Moses saw some form, for he declared he saw the “back parts” of God pass before him. In his song of departure, Moses spoke of God upon earth, saying “I will raise my hand to heaven and declare that I live forever” and “there is no god beside me.”

 The prophets spoke of his coming, from David onward, speaking of the Lord who would come from David,  whom Isaiah also declared to be the “everlasting father,” and Micah declared would be born in Bethlehem but whose days were from everlasting. Yes, they declared God would walk among us and come to his temple. And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is too small a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

Israel is indeed too small a thing to limit God’s glory. Salvation has come to the nations again through Jesus. God will not be lost in Zeus or Dyaus, Tiv, or just deus pater-- “father God.” He has revealed himself clearly. No one’s imagination will take the place of his doings. Rather, declare them, as David wrote, declare the doings of God. His greatest doing is that he came and walked among us, that he suffered the Cross and humiliation to teach us what love is. Do not lose his name in “God” and forget him and make him the general deity by which you deceive yourselves.

The doings and nature of God have been made forever clear, and salvation has come to the nations. Now God restores Israel to his salvation, that all the world may again see the glory of God in the redemption of Israel, when Israel again believes and understands that God has walked amongst us and his name was and is and and his nature shall always be Saviour. Moses is justified. His Redeemer has walked upon the earth, and Moses has and shall surely see him in his flesh. We shall surely see God from our own bodies, with our own eyes we shall see the Lord.