God's private name, and its substitutes

God’s personal, private name was held in such high regard that it was only rarely spoken in the time of Jesus. Even the written form might be a euphemism for its oral, pronounced form. And as it happens, the early Christians, and even we today, acknowledge substitutes for God’s personal name as a way of showing respect.

The most obvious way of doing this is by writing the word LORD in our English translations of the Bible, inspired by the Jewish practice of saying “Lord” when reading the Bible out loud and coming across God’s sacred name. But there are other substitutes as well. The expression “Heaven” sometimes refers to directly to God, not just to where God dwells.

As for Jesus, it is very interesting that the early Christians also adopted the pattern of substitutes for his human name. One of them was actually the word “Name” itself. In the case of Saint Paul, we see him use the word “Christ” as a substitute for Jesus’ human name. Christ was actually a title, but he used it as a name. For a man who was trained as such a devout Jew in his youth, it hints at how much respect he had for Jesus’ name, and therefore for Jesus’ himself. After all, he is adopting a pattern of speaking about God, and applying it to Jesus. It is yet another early hint at the Christian belief in Jesus’ divinity.