Mt 6:9-10; Lk 11:2
“Our Father in Heaven, hallowed by Your Name. Your Kingdom come; Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
As we asked last week, the question is: How will our Father’s name be sanctified/hallowed? Well, one way is for us to live and speak in such a way that is honoring to Him – our heavenly Father, who gives His children eternal life in His promised New Creation! (Ex 20:12) (This we covered in Part 1.) The other way is for YHVH — God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob – to act on His own behalf to sanctify His holy Name among all whom He has created. God is actively involved in both, since He has told us that His already holy name will be sanctified, and calls us to participate in that outcome. What an honor, and a responsibility! (Is 5:15-17; 1Thes 4:1-8; Rom 12:1-2)
Lev 22:31-33 Therefore, you shall keep my commandments, and perform them: I am YHVH. You shall not profane My Holy Name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel. I am YHVH who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am YHVH. (Rom 6:12-23)
YHVH God tells His people Israel, whom He has chosen, to keep His commandments so that they will not profane/blaspheme His Name but sanctify His Name. The history of the Children of Israel and the Jewish people, and of those Jews and Gentiles who call Jesus/Yeshua “Lord” shows us that we have not succeeded so well in this high calling of keeping and performing our God’s commandments of His faithful love. I only need to look at myself to know that. (Rom 11:25-33) We learned that also from our study of the Lord’s letters to the seven churches. By the grace and mercies of God, He forgives us our sins through our faith in the blood of the cross of the New Covenant, and He will act again for His holy Name’s sake to hallow/sanctify His great Name. (Ex 7:1-5; 9:13-21; Ezek 38:1-4, 16-17, 23)
God our Father chastens His children whom He loves so that we will be partakers of His holiness. It seems that we only learn obedience which sanctifies His name when we learn from His moral discipline in our lives. (Heb 12:3-13) Most parents also know this to be true. So, too, for the nations: “…for when Your judgments are in the Earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness; let favor/grace be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness. In the land of uprightness, he will deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of YHVH.” (Is 26:7-10) The gospel will not change “the world”: the inhabitants “of the world” do not accept the sovereignty of YHVH God, or else think that He is like their gods. The devil is a liar, a deceiver, a destroyer, a murderer, a thief; and his ministers can appear as angels of light/truth.
What must our Father in Heaven do to hallow His Holy Name among His own people, and among even His enemies, since we are incapable to accomplish this great thing? (Is 59:12-20; 63:2-7) The day is coming when God will not allow His Holy Name to be profaned anymore by rebels among His own people, or by those non-Jews and nations who oppose Him and His people and His land. (Is 61:2b; Joel 3:9-17; Acts 17:29-31; Rev 14:6-7; 22:10-17)
We all like to think of Jesus as the Lamb of God, as the one who turns the other cheek when struck. We often tend to forget that He is also the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, who is to be feared, and who knows how to make war and be victorious. YHVH is a Man of War – the LORD of Hosts/Armies. (Ex 15:3; Is 47:4) Messiah Yeshua/Christ Jesus is YHVH of Hosts, and is the same today, yesterday, and forever! (Jn 12:37-41; Is 6:1-5; Mal 3:6; Heb 13:8)
YHVH, God of Israel, is “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by not means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” (Ex 34:6-7; Jon 4:2; Joel 2:13; Ezek 18:19-32)
What must be so terrible and threatening that the wrath of the Father and of Lamb should come!? (Rev 6:15-17) The wrath of a lion we can get; but the wrath of a lamb?!
Ezek 36:22-28; 37:21-28; 38:14-17, 23; 39:6-8; Rev 15:1-4 YHVH God is faithfully keeping His covenant promise to return the Jews back to the land which He promised them for an inheritance to possess (if we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself!); and by His wrath on Gog (the Antichrist, in my understanding [Ezek 38:16-17]) and on His enemies and the enemies of Jews and Christians who are in covenant relationship with Him.
Ps 74:10-23 the wicked blaspheme the name of YHVH God, and oppress the people of His covenant: arise, O God, plead Your own cause!
Rev 11:15-18; 19:1-5 those who love Him praise His holy name when the set time of His judgments come upon those who oppose Him and us who are called by His Name. (Rev 6:9-11)
God Himself wants as many people to be saved as possible. For this, He sent His only begotten Son into the world. Yet there is a time when His patience and long-suffering love reaches its limit, and He must act on behalf of His holy name. Yeshua also came to judge the world, by separating the light from the darkness. And what the believers can not complete – the Great Commission — God will by sending out angels with the proclamation of the gospel! For this set time of God’s righteous judgments, those who love Him rejoice.
Rev 14:6-7 Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come; and worship Him who made the heavens and the Earth, the sea and springs of water!
Rev 15:1-4 All will fear the only true holy God because of His judgments.
Rev 16:4-9 God’s judgments are true and righteous, but men blaspheme Him and do not repent and give Him glory.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. He is a consuming fire! He will baptize us with fire to purify His Bride, sanctifying her wholly. This same fire will consume everything that is not of Messiah/Christ. (Heb 10:26-31; 12:28-29; Dt 4:24; Mt 3:11-12; 1Pt 1:3-9; 2Pt 3:8-15; Ezek 20:45-48)
Our Father’s name will be sanctified and glorified, as will the name of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has borne His reproach. (Ps 69:7-12; Rom 15:1-7; Heb 13:12-15) We have our part in this. The Lord Jesus Christ/Yeshua the Messiah will see to it – when He comes to carry out God’s wrath on all those bent on evil (Rev 15:1-8) — that every created thing in the heavens, on the Earth, under the Earth, and in the seas will give glory to the holy name of the Creator of the heavens and the Earth, and of the Redeemer of His creation, and the Savior of all who repent and believe the gospel and believe on the name of the Son of God. (Jn 1:10-14; 1Jn 5:18-21; 1Tim 4:10)
Our message until that day is the gospel, that as many as possible will be saved from the wrath of God to come. (Acts 2:38-40; 1Thes 1:9-10) Until that day, we are to sanctify ourselves as the children of God so that the name of our Father in Heaven is hallowed. (Eph 5:25-28; Rev 19:6-9)
