A new movement in the world always has to frame new words and phrases in which to express itself. This law of human nature is operative today. Physical inventions and discoveries have created a host of strange terms to correspond. We were compelled to coin fresh words which our ancestors never heard of, before we could discourse about automobiles and submarines and airplanes. For new wine demands new bottles; and whenever the vintage ripens and the winepress fills, the bottles are not lacking.
The same thing occurs still more conspicuously in times of revival. Pentecost has this sure sign and sequel that men began to speak with new tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. They employ old phrases in a fresh sense, they take common words and put them to nobler uses and transfigure them with holier meaning.
As soon as Christian faith spread abroad and rooted itself in heathen soil, its genius borrowed and adapted the language of its new home. The early Gentile converts did what the converts in our modern mission fields are constantly doing. They converted secular words to Christian uses….
This may be illustrated by two examples of the use of words not, in a technical sense, theological. In the Acts of the Apostles we find that the earliest Christians often spoke of their faith simply as “the Way.” Our Lord had set them an example when He said, “Narrow is the Way.” He Himself was a new and living Way. And so we read of the Way of God, the Way of truth, the Way of salvation, until this term becomes a kind of synonym for Christianity. The Pharisee Saul’s commission said that if he found “any of the Way” he should bring them bound to Jerusalem, and in after years he confessed, “I persecuted this Way unto the death”….
Yet another and more striking example of primitive Christian dialect appears in the habit which the early Christian disciples acquired of referring to “the Name” as though that word stood for the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The New Testament commonly designates our Lord either as Jesus, the Saviour, or as Christ, the Sent of God. After the resurrection these were often combined into one appellation.
But again and again we read how they preached concerning the Name. They were forbidden to speak to any man in this Name. Yet speak they must, for “there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Many believed on His Name and had life through His Name and were baptized in His Name. They gathered together for worship in His Name, and therefore with His Presence among them. When they offered a prayer, or gave a cup of cold water, or received a little child, it was in the Lord’s Name. Whatsoever they did, in word or deed, they did all in the Name of the Lord Jesus. To name that Name was to depart from iniquity.
This characteristic formula of the early Church was more than an accident. Some, indeed, would ascribe it to the influence of ancient magic, which held that a god or demon was present whenever his name was duly uttered in an invocation. But no student of Scripture can fail to recognize in this primitive Christian usage the imitation of a far earlier Jewish habit of speech.
In the Old Testament the Name of the Lord is mentioned almost as often as the Lord Himself. For an overpowering reverence had gathered round the sacred Hebrew name of Almighty God. The Jews came to treat it as a mystery, too awful to be spoken aloud. It was so high above every name that the rabbis shrank from pronouncing its syllables. They substituted a feebler word in its place. In ordinary Jewish speech “the Name” came to be used as an equivalent for Jehovah.
Thus it was not by accident that the Christians fell into the custom of treating the Name of Jesus the Messiah in the same fashion as their fathers had treated the ineffable, unutterable Name of Jehovah. It bears witness to the way in which those early disciples instinctively thought of Him. For them, His Name is above every name because they beheld heaven opened and Jesus in the midst of the throne of God….
All generations of believers have proven its strange, unearthly attraction, its enduring permanence, its mighty and miraculous power. For such disciples as these, their faith is expressed in the Name of Jesus Christ, their love is centered upon Him. In every age there are multitudes of simple-hearted folk, the aged and little children, the humble and heavy-laden and the poor, to whom science is dumb and nature is dark and criticism is foolishness, who find in the Lord Jesus Himself all and more than all they need.
Not in empty words do such Christians testify to the sufficiency of their Saviour and the supremacy of His Name. They tell us that He is far better than even His own promises. They declare that they know Him as they cannot know their dearest earthly friends. In Him all the longings of the soul find their fruition, all losses have their compensation, all the ills and griefs of life have their cure.
To the worshippers of Jesus Christ His Name is far above every name that is named in this world or in that which is to come because His Life is above every life, and His Love above every love, and His Passion above every passion. Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto His Sorrow. His Sacrifice is above every sacrifice, His Victory above every victory. Therefore “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and…every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11).