This article is intended to explain my position on the personal, sacred names of our Heavenly Father and His Son, our Savior. I have shared a small part of my personal testimony about this matter, because experience tells me that many of us have a similar story. I was overjoyed when I first heard this “new” teaching about my Father. My second reaction though was to scratch my head and wonder why I only knew Him as God.

Transliterated to English from Hebrew, the Almighty’s name is Yahweh or something very close to it. In the Hebrew of the Old Testament scriptures the name is spelled with four letters, yod he waw he. The English approximation is roughly YHWH. Amazingly that name was inspired to be written into the Old Testament text almost 7000 times. Any time you see “LORD” (in all capital letters) in your English translation, the Hebrew yod he waw he, Yahweh, is what should be there. So why isn’t it?

What Happened?

Who decided it would be a good idea to use LORD as a substitute for Yahweh when the scriptures were translated from the Hebrew into English, or almost any other language for that matter? LORD is so generic. It completely fails to convey the essence of the name Yahweh. Hebrew names have meanings, which are often lost on those of us who don’t fluently write or speak the language. It’s even more difficult to understand the importance of a Hebrew name if it is substituted for by a title such as LORD.

So here we are centuries after the substitution began. The question is why should we continue in this clearly unscriptural practice of substituting anything in place of the Father’s name. We shouldn’t. Exodus 20:2 says, “ I am Yahweh your Elohim who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other elohim (gods) before me.” We also have Isaiah 42:8, “ I am Yahweh, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another, nor my praise to graven images.” And we don’t want to forget Proverbs 30:4, “Who has ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if you can tell?” There are multitudes of other scriptures that indicate our Father takes His name very seriously. We should too.

What Does His Name Mean?

As I stated earlier, Hebrew names have very specific meanings. When we look at names in the scriptures we can see that names were often given in accordance with a personality trait, or physical trait of a person. Sometimes they were given by way of prophetic revelation as a means of defining a future event in a person’s life. As an example, Solomon means peace. The Israelite king with this name brought peace to the nation after many years of bloody war between David and his enemies. Another example is Eliyah the prophet. Eliyah means my El (mighty one) is Yah. In his battle with the prophets of baal , Eliyah, by his actions, clearly showed his El is Yahweh. Most names of important people in the scriptures define those people in similar ways.

So what does the name Yahweh mean? While there is some speculation and disagreement among scholars, the bulk of our current information gives the meaning as something along the lines of “the self-existent one”, or more literally, “I was, I am, I will be”. In essence it conveys the meaning of eternal, self-existence, with no beginning and no end. Revelation 1:8 reads, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, says Yahweh, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. So there we have it, Yahweh himself defining who he is. Something is lost when we substitute LORD or God for the name of our Heavenly Father. Psalm 83:16-18 says, “Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek your name, O Yahweh. Let them be confounded and troubled forever, yes, let them be put to shame, and perish: That men may know that you, whose name alone is Yahweh, are the most high over all the earth.”

The Son’s Name

While the original inspired name of the Father is fairly well established, the name of the Son is a little more difficult to pinpoint. Most of us know the Son of Yahweh as Jesus. Our parents or ministers taught us from the time we were young that Jesus is the name of salvation. It is a name many of us hold precious and dear to our hearts. We often have an emotional attachment to this name. The only problem is that it isn’t a very accurate representation of our Savior’s given Hebrew name. For that matter it isn’t really a very good representation from the Greek New Testament either.

There are some “sacred name” people who will try to make a linguistic connection between the name Jesus and the name Zeus. I suppose, this is for the purpose of trying to boost their own argument that Jesus is unacceptable to use as our Savior’s name. I don’t believe there is any connection between the two words. I think it is poor scholarship and a lack of education in languages that leads to that false connection. The conclusion I have come to is that “Jesus” is an inferior transliteration of the Hebrew name of our Savior. I don’t believe there was a major conspiracy down through the ages to cover His original Hebrew name. Rather I think it has been a case of convoluted transliteration (although honest attempts) through several languages that has gotten us to where we are today.

So now we can try to answer the question. What is the Son’s name? To determine the best English transliteration of the Son’s name from Hebrew we first have to determine what the Hebrew spelling and pronunciation is. This is where we run into some difficulty.

One line of thought says that the Messiah’s name as given in Matthew 1:21 (Jesus in most English bibles) is from the Hebrew word “yod shin waw ayin. This roughly comes through as Yeshua in English and has the simple meaning of salvation. Most Messianic Jewish and Hebrew Roots type groups subscribe to this line of thought. It has linguistic and historic validity and was in common usage as the Savior walked this earth.

A second line of thought says Jesus is derived from the Hebrew yod he waw shin ayin, and is pronounced as Yahushua, Yahoshua, or Yahshua. This name is actually a compound word that incorporates part of the Father’s name, (Yah), with salvation; to get Yahweh is salvation. Those who subscribe to this transliteration often point to two factors. The first is that the Savior is a type of Joshua in the Old Testament. The Hebrew of Joshua is yod he waw shin ayin. The second support some offer is that in the book of Zechariah there is a prophecy concerning the coming Messiah. The Hebrew used in this passage is again yod he waw shin ayin.

There are a lot of other arguments on either side of this pronunciation issue, but the bottom line is we don’t know with absolute certainty the correct pronunciation of the Son’s name. We can be sure that the name Jesus is a long way from the original Hebrew, and lacks the Hebraic quality of either Yeshua or Yahshua. In Yahweh’s Messianic Fellowship we don’t make this a test of fellowship, nor do we consider it an issue of salvation, but we do strongly encourage the use of the Messiah’s Hebrew name, especially in our worship services. We would encourage you to do the same. You might just find a deep blessing in doing so.

Titles

One more issue needs to be briefly addressed in regard to this name subject. Usually once one realizes the Father and Son both have names other than what we have been taught, the issue of titles comes up. If neither LORD or God, are the name of the Father and we decide to start calling Him Yahweh, can we still use Lord or God in reference to Him, or Christ in reference to the Son? There are some that would say these titles have linguistic connections to pagan deities. The evidence for this is tenuous at best. There are some that think of these titles as extra baggage they carry with them; something left over from a less enlightened time in their spiritual walk. For that reason they won’t use them. A third argument says these English titles lack the meaning and impact of the Hebrew words they are translated from, such as elohim or adonai. Whether a person decides to use these titles or not, I think it needs to be stressed that there is a distinct difference between using them as titles and actually substituting them for the name of the Father or Son.

Conclusion

One thing I avoided in this article is most of the linguistic technicalities involved with the proper pronunciation of the names of Yahweh and Yahshua. There is plenty of information out there if you want to study a little more deeply. Just be forewarned it can be an endless search. Every scholar (and some not so scholarly) has his opinion. Within our own fellowship we have varied views about these things. Some of us prefer Yeshua, some of us prefer Yahshua (hence the use of Y’shua on the main areas of our website). Some will use Lord or God as a title, some won’t. The one thing our fellowship is built upon is a deep love for the Father, the Son, and for one another. We do believe truth is important, but it must always be conveyed in a spirit of love and must never take precedence over love. If you have any questions about any of this please feel free to contact us at Yahweh’s Messianic Fellowship.

Scott Leys