Most gods of the ancient world had titles. The God of Israel has a name — a personal name He chose to reveal. He gave it in the one place a man could not argue with: a bush that burned and was not consumed, with Moses on his face in the dirt, barefoot, hiding his eyes (Exodus 3:6). Everything this page is about begins in that fire.
The Name revealed at the bush
When Moses asked what to call the God who was sending him, the answer was not a title but a declaration of sheer existence:
“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” — Exodus 3:14
In the next breath He fixed it forever: “the LORD God of your fathers… this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations” (Exodus 3:15). The name is built on the Hebrew verb to be. It means the Self-Existent One — the God who simply is, who depends on nothing, who was and is and is to come. Everything else that exists was made; He alone is. That is the name God gave Himself.
Why your Bible prints “the LORD” in capitals
In Hebrew that personal name is written with four consonants — YHWH, what scholars call the Tetragrammaton. It was held so sacred that in time it was not spoken aloud; when a reader reached it, he said Adonai (“Lord”) instead. The King James translators preserved the distinction a different way: wherever the sacred name YHWH stands in the original, they printed “the LORD” (and sometimes “GOD”) in small capital letters, to set it apart from the ordinary word for a lord or master. Twice they spelled it out as Jehovah: “by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them” (Exodus 6:3), and “thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth” (Psalm 83:18). So the next time you see “the LORD” in capitals, you are looking at the very name spoken from the bush.
One Name, because one God
The whole Old Testament guards a single, jealous truth: there is only one such Name, because there is only one God.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” — Deuteronomy 6:4
“I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another.” — Isaiah 42:8
“There is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:21-22). He will not share the Name or the glory. Hold that firmly — it is the key that makes the New Testament astonishing.
The Name is a refuge, and it saves
This Name is not an abstraction to be studied; it is a place to run to. “The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe” (Proverbs 18:10). And it carries salvation in it: “whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered” (Joel 2:32). From the very start, to be saved was to call on the Name.
Then the Name was given to a child
Here is the turn that should stop us. The same God who said “I will not give my glory to another” sent an angel to name a baby — and the name he gave was a sentence about salvation:
“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” — Matthew 1:21
“Jesus” (Hebrew Yeshua) means YHWH is salvation — the LORD saves. The angel does not explain the name by sound but by work: He is called that because “he shall save his people from their sins.” The saving Name that Israel called upon at the sea now has a face, and hands, and a cross before it.
And Jesus took “I AM” as His own
Jesus did not speak as a man borrowing God’s name. He reached back to the bush and put its words in His own mouth:
“Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.” — John 8:58
His hearers understood exactly what He claimed — they took up stones (John 8:59). He warned, “if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24); and in Gethsemane, when He said “I am he,” the arresting band “went backward, and fell to the ground” (John 18:6). The “I AM” of Exodus was standing in front of them in a body. “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9); “God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16; see Who Is Jesus?).
The name above every name
So the New Testament gathers all of it onto one Name:
“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” — Philippians 2:9-11
And Peter leaves no room for a second option: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The Name once revealed in the fire to rescue a people out of Egypt is the Name now given to rescue you out of sin — and it is the name of Jesus.
Which is why they baptized in His name
This is not a theory the early church left on a shelf. They acted on it in the most practical way possible — they called that Name over everyone they baptized. “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38); and so it is through the book of Acts (Acts 8:16; 10:48; 19:5). Paul summed up the whole Christian life the same way: “whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). The Apostolic (Oneness) reading is that the single “name” the Lord commanded in Matthew 28:19 — “the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” — is revealed and fulfilled in the one name, Jesus, for the prophet had already said, “in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one” (Zechariah 14:9).
Here many sincere Christians read differently, and it is only fair to say so plainly. Those in the Trinitarian tradition understand Matthew 28:19 as naming three divine persons and often treat its words as the baptismal formula, while still holding Jesus to be fully God; they would say the “I AM” shows His deity within the Godhead rather than collapsing the distinctions. This study presents the held Apostolic conviction that the one God of Sinai is the same One who stood in flesh as Jesus — and where the identifying of that one Name reaches beyond what the text spells out, it is offered as humble inference, not as a club. “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
The Name is still a strong tower
Strip it all down and this is what remains: God has a Name, He revealed it to save, and He has told you how to take hold of it. The bush still burns. The ground is still holy. And the Name that Moses hid his face before is the Name that now bends low to save you — near enough to be called on, and strong enough to answer.
“Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” — Acts 2:38
Run into the tower. It has a name, and the name is Jesus.