Understanding the True Names of God in the Bible and their Significance

By Guest Blogger Batnabas aka Linda Morris

I don’t know if you’re like me, confused about who we are worshipping in church these days? We sing songs about Yahweh, Jehovah, God although mostly about Jesus, but then speak about having worshipped Jesus and that we worship Him alone!

This isn’t a problem in itself – because we worship Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

But a study I have been taking part in for the last few months made me begin to look at it in more depth.

We have been listening to Tom Bradford’s teaching in The Torah Class, on the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.  He is an excellent Bible teacher and I recommend listening to his teachings.

He speaks a lot about the name of God and points out that in our Bibles it is usually translated from the original Hebrew יהוה (Yehoveh/Yehovah) to Lord. We also see אלוהים (Elohim) in the Hebrew being translated to ‘God’ in our English translations.

Exodus 3:2 says “And the Angel of the Lord”.  The Hebrew says the Angel of  יהוה (Yehoveh)

Exodus 2:25 says “And God looked”.  The Hebrew says And  אלוהים looked (Elohim)

The most frequent use of Elohim in the Hebrew Bible (The Tanakh) refers to the God of Israel, the one true God.  However, Elohim also refers to other beings in the spiritual realm, such as angels, members of God’s heavenly council, or the gods of other nations, though these are distinct from the supreme God, Yehoveh. Deuteronomy 5:6 says “I am the Lord your God”. In Hebrew “I am Yehoveh, your Elohim”.  It’s a bit confusing , isn’t it?

Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning God created”.  In Hebrew “Elohim created”.  The ending of the Hebrew word is “im” which is the masculine plural in Hebrew. This has led scholars to say that it means more than one person so implies that Jesus was there at the beginning with the Father.

However, we find the unique name of God in Exodus. When Moses asks God what His name is, He says יהוה Yehoveh (Exodus 3:14).  The Jewish people call it the Tetragrammaton and say that they have lost the understanding of how to pronounce it.  As it is a Holy name they stopped using it, preferring either HaShem (the Name) or Adonai. The Jewish people I know say HaShem.

Whilst this is all very interesting, I have to confess that I kept wondering why Tom kept going on about God’s name.  Why is it so important to us Christians?  It took a while, but I finally got it.  To the point where it now irritates me when we don’t distinguish between who we are praising!!

You may have been thinking, like me for many years, and probably hundreds of others, that the churches mainly talk about Jesus – King Jesus.  Most churches don’t talk about God.  We have become very Jesus orientated, and that’s not wrong. Through His death on the cross we have received our salvation. We owe Him everything.  We are eternally grateful.  He deserves our praise.

However the problem with this is that it is part of the reason why the churches are moving away from the roots of our faith.   A lot of Christians don’t read the Old Testament.  We have developed New Testament thinking, in that we see the Old Testament through the eyes of the New instead of the other way round.  Now I’m not saying every Christian – but a lot of them.  Someone said to me recently that in order to know God we have to know Jesus.  I replied that it is rather that in order to know Jesus we have to know God!

Almost every time the name יהוה in the Hebrew Tanakh appears in English it is translated ‘Lord’.  Occasionally ‘Adonai’.  The problem with this is that when we read the New Testament and it says ‘Lord’ it’s referring to Jesus.  So the names become the same.

I remember a teaching I received long ago that said that Jesus came to point the way to the Father. John’s Gospel in particular sees that Jesus often referred to His Father.

John 5:30 “I can do nothing on my own. I judge only as I hear, and my judgement is just because I do not seek my own will but the will of Him who sent me”

John 14:6  Jesus said to him….. “No-one comes to the Father except through me”

John 14:10 “The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority but the Father who dwells in Me does the works”

John 14:24 “He who does not love me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me”

John 15:15 “all things I heard from my Father I have made known to you”

John 16:25  “the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father”

John 17:4 “I have finished the work that You have given Me to do”

John 17:6 “I have manifested Your name to the men You have given me out of the world”

These are only a few of them.

1 Corinthians 15:24-28 tells us that at the end of time, Jesus delivers the Kingdom to God the Father when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and all power, and the Son Himself will also be subject to God.

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a church-made theology. We recognise the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as being equal but ultimately God is the head.  The church must not side-line God!

We need to read the Old Testament to discover the character of God.  Just recently I read about God’s soul – I haven’t noticed that before.   It’s God who rolls up his sleeves on behalf of Israel (bares his Holy arm the scripture says). When you see how God interacts with the characters in the Old Testament you understand His nature.  God is truly amazing and where do you get that from?  The Old Testament. I love reading it because I see more and more of the beautiful attributes of God.   The Bible tells us that Jesus is the image of God (Colossians 1:15).   Why would we not want to read the Old Testament?

This is so important to us as Christians.  Separating from God and the Old Testament has led way to the church separating from it’s Hebraic roots and we are losing out! We can’t let that happen!  This has also added to the alarming rise of antisemitism among Christians.  Antisemitism has no place in the church!!  How are you going to feel when you come face to face with Jesus?  How will you answer Him when He asks you why you are against the Jews?  It’s time to put this right and it’s up to YOU to do this.

Linda Morris

August 2025